Until We Meet Again
by BootsnHats
Summary: Memories, Aramis knows, are hard to sink. They rise to the surface at the most inconvenient times, flagrantly flaunting their ability to come and go as they please. And what he's remembering as the Musketeers wait upon the arrival of the Duke & Duchess of Savoy, is the ghosts of twenty dead men.
1. Chapter 1

_Until We Meet Again_

 _Chapter 1 of 12_

 _While this story stands alone, it may perhaps be more poignant if you've read A Mother's Heart, as it sets the groundwork for how Aramis acquired his talents as a ghost whisperer._

 _To my awesome beta, annejackdanny, thank you from the bottom of my heart. She's a great plot-hole detective, a blood hound for inconsistencies and incomparable when it comes to ferreting out missing/misspelled/misplaced words and sentences. Heart hugs, girlfriend._

 _All remaining errors and/or political plot holes are mine alone._

 _Warnings: If as a reader you are squicked by non-consensual sexual intimacy, I'd recommend you use your back button now. Further along in the story Aramis wakens to such a situation, though_ he _is not squicked by it. Because of the ocean of accusations flying around my side of the pond, I almost edited it out, but in the end I left it, and you, dear reader, will have to decide if you're willing to go forward. I will put another warning at the top of the chapter as well, but please consider yourself warned._

 _This story is not canon compliant, though it does not stray far._

* * *

 _Prologue_

 _Summer 1630 - Louvre Courtyard_

Memories, he had discovered, were embedded in muscle and bone. Sometimes they conveniently sank to the bottom of the blood stream; sometimes the weight holding them down disintegrated, allowing them to rise like enveloping mists over a morning lake. He had also learned it was impossible to destroy them without involving loss of life.

Aramis was no longer present, though his body remained upright, his eyes front. Anyone noticing his appearance would have assumed his duty stance to be exactly the same as his teammates.

Expect his teammates knew the difference.

"Have you forgotten about the massacre at Savory?" Porthos said out of the side of his mouth, in response to Athos', "What's wrong with him?

"What massacre?" d'Artagnan stood in formation as well, shoulders straight, hands behind his back just as the others, only the blue cape was missing. No one remarked his presence among the Musketeers.

"Ambush, twenty men died, Aramis and one other were the only survivors."

d'Artagnan swallowed his gasp.

Aramis did not so much as twitch. His physical body still stood at attention but on some astral plane, he was five years younger, a veteran Musketeer three years in the regiment, in the middle of a clearing littered with the bodies of dead comrades and friends.

* * *

 _Easter 1625 - The western border of Savoy with France_

Cold.

Deep, bone chilling cold.

It was the first thing that registered as consciousness burst through the fog like fireworks inside his head.

Instinct had his hands scrabbling at snow and grass, though no weapon came immediately to hand.

There was an awareness that something had happened; he knew he'd been injured, but no details came to support that knowledge, just the coppery tang of blood on his tongue, the smell of it populating his nostrils like forest detritus. He smelled dirt too, and smoke, and the distinctive scent of the white pines surrounding the camp.

But he could see nothing.

He scrambled to his feet, reaching a hand to investigate whatever kept brushing his shoulder. A cloth, tied around his throbbing head. Yes ... injured.

How?

Where?

His knees gave out ... or the world dropped out from under him. Aramis went down, but only briefly. Shoving off the ground, he tottered to his feet again, stiff-arming a tree trunk that immediately staggered into his path. As much by chance as intention he fell against it. When he opened his eyes again, the darkling clouds hiding the face of the moon had parted.

As did the fog in his mind.

Memory returned in a jumbled rush.

Training mission ... recruits ... dead ... Savoy ... dead ... swords and shouting in the night ... dead.

Bodies sprawled awkwardly where they'd fallen ... dead.

They were all dead.

Marsac ghosted into view, the unfolding scene warped as if the ribbon of time was fraying, slowing every motion. Aramis saw the Musketeer's leather pauldron hit the forest floor, watched Marsac turn and walk away. Then, as if each step stole a bit of solidity from his body, vanish among the night-dark trees.

The tree trunk shifted. Aramis found himself on his knees again, retching violently. Lightning struck him in the head and he went down, gladly, to join his dead brothers-in-arms.

* * *

Over hill and dale, through thick stands of forest and atop a high hill in a distant castle, a patient wife quizzed her frosty-blue-eyed husband.

"This looks like a saber cut and it is deep, it will require stitches."

"Just cleanse and bandage it for now. I have business to attend to."

"In the middle of the night?" the Duchess of Savoy demanded. "You are just now home. Where have you been? What has happened? With whom do you have business at this hour of the night."

Victor, the Duke of Savoy, gave his pretty, nightgown-clad wife a brief one-armed hug. He was not in the habit of keeping secrets from her, but she did not need the whole truth of this night. Accordingly, the duke sighed a bit theatrically. "Oh, Cluzet has gone missing again, so I must find him." He would not share that her brother, the king of France, had ordered his assassination. Or more likely, her brother's First Minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Not that the distinction was necessary.

"Again?" The dark head. bent over the management of bandaging, lifted with a degree of inquisitiveness the duke could not find intriguing in the moment.

"Again," he said, rolling his eyes. "He's probably roistering in some tavern somewhere ..." Damn, his wits were scattered. That had been the entirely wrong thing to say, since Cluzet was not the roistering sort. "My love, this need not concern you. Tie off the bandage and be done with it." He shifted impatiently on the stool she had set for him in her chambers and half rose.

The duchess pushed him back down, though she finished her chore quickly and stepped back so she could look into his face. "Since when does _our_ business not concern me?" Her arms crossed over her delectable chest and her slippered foot began to tap.

The duke scratched his head, but it was empty of ideas. He had either to tell her at least half the truth, or tell her, in no uncertain terms, it was none of her business. He did not have that kind of marriage.

"Richelieu has accused Cluzet of being a Spanish spy. The fact that he has disappeared is suspicious. If I do not follow quickly, and Richelieu is the culprit, Cluzet will disappear into France where I will never find him again."

He would not tell her of the French blood already on his hands. An assassination plot could not go un-revenged, though the Musketeer camp had not even had sentinels posted. In the heat of the moment, he had not stopped to think about such things, nor would he now. Right or wrong, he could not undo what was already done.

She stepped forward between his knees, her slender fingers coming up to frame his face, then combing through his hair. The witchy mouth came down to hover over his, her breath fanning the flames of his desire. "What are you not telling me?" She kissed him, nipping at his bottom lip before soothing the tiny hurt with a glide of her tongue.

The duke set his hands about her waist and rose, bending to take quick possession of that mouth before neatly stepping around her. "I must find Cluzet." He strode to the door without a backwards glance, so he would not see her moue of displeasure.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you the cardinal is a snake." Her quiet words followed him across the vast expanse of carpet. "Beware his fangs, my love."

"You are correct; no need to remind me."

"Have the courtesy to wake me on your return, please, so that I may know you are yet whole and hardy."

He bowed, hand on the door latch, but still did not turn back. "It will be as you wish."

The duchess waited until the echo of his angry footsteps in the long corridor died away, then blew out the candles she had lit in order to attend him. Retiring to their dark bedchamber, she propped herself against the wall behind the drapes at the corner window and waited.

The party assembled quickly, more quickly than would have been possible had her husband had to roust men from their beds, gather gear and saddle horses for a midnight ride. She could see sweat glistening on the horses as well, and knew her fear to be confirmed.

She'd seen the look in his eyes. He was a hard man, but a fair one usually, else she could not love him as she did. This night's work had put the devil in him though, and in one of those moods, there was no telling what he might have done.

As expected, the duke glanced up, unerringly marking the spot where she stood well hidden in the shadows of the room. He lifted a hand in salute, that crooked half smile proclaiming he knew she was there.

Her own hand lifted, though she knew he could see neither it nor her, but such was their marriage. He knew her like the back of his hand. She knew him better then she knew herself.

Below, he whirled his horse and galloped down the long front drive without the slightest indication he'd been hurt. She did not count, but at least two dozen more horses and riders fell in behind, torches and tails streaming in the wind of the swift passage, until they disappeared from her sight.

Christine did not waste time.

Throwing on a dressing gown, thankful for the soft slippers she wore, she was running silently through the deserted corridors, her unbound hair streaming out behind her like the horses tails just moments ago. If anyone in the house knew what had happened, it would be her own household spy. She could not go to his rooms in the attic, but he would answer a summons, if he was not already in the kitchen waiting for her.

It was risky to do this in the middle of the night, but she could not rest until she knew the extent of the fearful news rage had pushed her husband too. Beneath the calm facade, she had sensed his roiling and knew this night's work could not be benign.

"Moss! Thank God!" She swung around the corner of the servants stairs and into the kitchen, slightly out of breath. "What has happened?"

The ancient man stood at the dry sink, dark fingers gripped tightly over the edge, blind eyes turned as if to follow the leave taking. "Musketeers, mum, they gone and killed a whole regiment of Musketeers. On the French side'a the border."

"What?" She flew to him, putting an arm around his trembling shoulders and drew him over to the table. "Sit. Sit, Moss, and tell me what has happened."

"Don' know the details, mum, just heard the talk. Fresh from the killin' they were, all of 'em laughin' and jokin' as though it were some kind'a rich prank. That there Frenchie king's men; slaughtered in their sleep, mum."

"No," her whisper was a rasp of disbelief. "No," she repeated, this time more strongly, though she had seen the torchlight gliding up and down the strange red streamers on the men's brandished swords. "He would not have done anything so barbaric." The voiced thought was immediately accompanied by an unvoiced - _unless he had been unduly provoked._

"We must send to Tréville at once, make him aware of the situation. And ride for the border immediately. There may be survivors, it was dark, they can't know they're all dead."

"Twenty men, mum. They counted. Twenty men."

There had been twenty-two on the training mission. Tréville always kept her apprised when there was troop movement near their borders.

"Go the stables and wake Benoît, have him saddle the swiftest horses that remain **.** There are two missing, we must see if we can find them before my husband does."

"You cain't go out in the middle of the night, mum, riding off like some hussy. It ain't done, you know that."

"You're right, it isn't, but it can't be helped." From the looks of it, only the patrol guards had been left behind. And Benoît, who had come to the marriage with Christine, along with a handful of other servants who answered directly to her. Gathering the voluminous skirts of her night rail, she headed back to the stairs. "Quickly Moss, time is of the essence. I am certain the duke takes the road, for he must be following a carriage; Cluzet does not ride. We will go across country."

"Your Grace," the ancient retainer wailed softly, "you be breakin' your neck!" But he shuffled across the kitchen, moving unerringly around the furniture, pulled his own coat down from the peg where it hung and went to do her grace's bidding.

 **TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**They rode like the wind, Christine leading as she knew every inch of ground over this space, though even with that knowledge, death stalked their flying heels. A rabbit or gopher hole, a rock changed position one tiny iota and a horse could break a leg, sending riders flying off to break limbs if they were lucky, necks if they were not.**

 **Benoît kept pace with her, fearlessly flying over the ground as though it were broad daylight. Above, dark shapes slithered around the pale disk of moon like sycophants, hiding its light. Except for the odd moment of brightness as the clouds shifted briefly, illuminating familiar markers as they flew past, the night was dark as a shuttered lantern. They did not dare carry torches like the band of men who'd streamed out the front drive. They hunted a different kind of prey, likely even more wary than the cardinal's men if they had, as the duke claimed, stolen away the Spanish spy.**

 **Threading the maze of the forest on the border proved challenging in the dark, but Christine let her nose lead her, following the faint trace of wood smoke still lingering on the night breeze. It was not long before the stench of carnage hit her as well.**

 **She had her pistol in one hand, reins in the other as they walked their horses into the clearing, alert for trouble.**

 **"Do not dismount," Christine ordered, swinging down herself as the moon came out of hiding. She handed her reins to Benoît, lest her horse bolt. Neither animal liked the rank smell of hours-old blood and excrement tainting the close quarters under the trees. Pistol at her side, she walked the length and breadth of the massacre, then passed beneath the trees to vomit the bile backing up in her throat.**

 **She did not have time to be sick, nor for tears, those she would shed in the privacy of her secret place where not even the prying eyes of the dead could see her. She wiped impatiently at her mouth with the back of her sleeve, then brushed it off hurriedly.**

 **The Duchess of Savoy picked up her dropped pistol and pushed off the tree she'd been leaning against. A bloody handprint marked a pauldron discarded in the snow behind her, a set of deep footprints trailing away from it, past her tree and down over the hill. She did not follow those, they were headed back into the interior of France.**

 **It was the other set of prints that worried her, the unevenly spaced, erratic prints staggering toward the road to Savoy.**

 **TCB**


	3. Chapter 3

His feet comprehended no compass points, neither east nor west, north nor south. Like witched inanimate objects, they set him on a course and plodded forward, right left right left, moving without thought or purpose. Body and soul had separated as he'd stood upon the dark field of battle. Except there had been no battle; his companions, his brothers-in-arms, had been slain in their sleep. Few swords or pistols even drawn.

His feet moved his body onward, his soul hovering somewhere between the massacre in the woods and the Hereafter. Lips moving in silent prayer, begging for release along with his brothers, his feet staggered on.

Destination - Paris. He was the only one left to carry the news home to the garrison.

If on the road, he met the benevolent god he had just turned his back on – the God of love and forgiveness the old priests who had been his teachers had introduced him to – his fate was sealed. If, on the other hand, he met the evil god who had just allowed the butchery of twenty good men, and plotted the desertion of another, then he would live on in heinous contemplation of this day for the rest of his unnatural life.

Surely no God of compassion would make him live on in this state of torture.

With his departure, Marsac had a left a gift, a torn French flag knotted about Aramis' brow; needs must when the devil drives. On some level he knew he was covered in blood; he could not remember if it was his own, or the others he had lifted into his arms one last time before his feet had set him on this path to the road.

The forest verge, covered in snow, gave way to a rutted trail only minimally maintained, though deep wheel tracks assured the presence of humanity somewhere in the vicinity – and recently. He had no idea how long he'd been moving, though night had given way to day. The bright sun after the mental and physical darkness of the forest pierced like tiny darts behind his eyes and he wanted to sag forward into the snow and drown in its purity. But that would only bloody its pristine beauty.

There was no fear in him as he stumbled onto the road, fear was folly indulged in only by those who had a reason to live. He would welcome death by any means if someone would only deliver the killing blow. In the meantime, he must struggle on, the sole survivor of a monstrous depravity because as one foot overtook the other, faint echoes of sound memories were working their way to the surface – a maniacal laugh lacing the frosty air, barking pistol fire, the clashing of steel accompanied by triumphant shouts.

" _Es_ _como pescar en un barril_ ," the voices had crowed. _Like shooting fish in a barrel._

He raised his hands, uselessly, to cover his ears. And trudged on.

The sun moved on the same trajectory it had since time began, its face shuttered so very little warmth penetrated the bone deep cold, but his frozen feet kept moving. Someone had to tell Tréville.

Marsac was gone. He remembered the blankness in the gaze that had met his own stunned look so briefly, the blaze of wildness that had flared and died as though iron struck flint but did not ignite. The senselessness of it all had driven the man mad, else he would not have fled. Aramis knew this in his heart, but the truth of it kept sliding away. Marsac had bandaged his head and left him to die with the rest of their friends. Why had he bothered at all? Why had the man dragged him out of harm's way and then left him to die?

No matter, there was no one else to take word to Paris. His ensorcelled feet continued to slog through the ankle deep snow. His hands fell away from his ears.

The blinding sun had moved perhaps a hand span across the sky when his ears told him a team was coming up behind him. Fast. He moved off the road, but his boots continued their forward motion, sloughing up snow with every step. Thank God he'd slept in his boots or he might never make it to Paris.

The coach, for it was an elaborate coach drawn by a four-in-hand that perfectly matched the exterior of the cream-colored vehicle, passed him by without acknowledgement.

He staggered on.

A whistle pierced the air, hurling toward him like a dagger to the back. It collided with his ears and set up a shrieking of monumental proportion inside his head, so loud he clapped his hands to his ears again.

He did not turn, for no aristo would deign to suffer one such as he _inside_ that coach.

A hand on his shoulder jarred the careful equilibrium he had established, sending him crashing to his knees. He would have gotten his wish and fallen face first into the snow, except the same hand hauled back with enough pressure on his collarbone that he saw stars and planets whirling before his eyes. Now – now would come the blow that would end it surely?

Abruptly, body and soul reunited.

Aramis, hanging onto consciousness by his fingernails, staggered as he was yanked to his feet, spun around and dragged, stumbling, back toward the coach. His feet knew they were going the wrong way, they refused to cooperate.

 **There were hands on his person, guiding, lifting, pushing as his vision swam in and out of focus.** Until he realized the bloody bandage had slipped over his left eye, obscuring his imperfect vision even more. "No," he stated firmly, "must get to Paris."

"No featherweight, this one," a woman's voice said breathlessly. "He certainly doesn't look like much, must be solid muscle."

He was heaved onto the floor of the coach like a sack of potatoes, with no time to get his bearings or even clear his spinning head. He heard a grunt as he felt himself lifted again and his skull came into excruciating contact with one side of the coach. Meanwhile his feet met the other side jarringly, his knees flopping about like just landed fish. It might have been embarrassing had he cared.

" _Qui êtes-vous_? _Comment vous appelez-vous?"_ Who are you? What is your name?

He knew the answer but his lips would not form the words. "Paris."

"You are from Paris, _oui_ , but what is your name?"

"Paris ... must get ... to ... Par..." The quality of darkness behind his closed eyelids changed between syllables, the nightmare fading away as consciousness slipped its moorings, once more loosening the tether between body and soul.

Christine, on her knees beside the stricken Musketeer, sighed in frustration. "Hand me the other blanket."

 **Benoît collected the blanket on the facing seat, passing it over. "I'll go erase what I can of his trail, but we need to move before someone else comes along. What do we do with him?" And when his mistress did not answer right away, began eliminating options. "Can't just throw 'em on a horse and hope he makes it back to Paris. Can't take him up to the house, can't keep 'em in the stables."**

 **"I know, I know." Christine sat back on her heels trying to assess the situation. She had not expected to find either of the missing Musketeers, or perhaps more truthfully, she had** ** _hoped_** **they would not find either of them. It would have been much easier to tell Tréville, in good conscience, she had searched without success.**

 **France or Savoy? Her marriage or her loyalty to her brother? What a quandary.**

 **She could not, however, leave another French soldier to die.**

 **"Let me think. Go see what you can do to erase his trail, I know it may not be possible but do what you can."**

 **Benoît had been her page for more years than he'd been a groom, and had been privy to her secrets then as well as now. He followed where she led without question, did what she asked without comment and still performed little errands for her from time to time, when he wasn't busy in the stable with her thoroughbreds. He was well aware the Duchess collected strays like other women collected hats or shoes.**

 **"What about your old nurse? Would she keep him do you think?"**

 **"It's an idea," she said thoughtfully, "or the empty game keeper's cottage. Though if Becca would have him ..." She'd been making frequent trips to the old woman's dwelling due to a recent decline in health, anyway, and Benoît's driving her down would be unlikely to raise suspicion since she often took the carriage in order to convey supplies. "Let's do that. She will know exactly what to do for him. A wise thought, Benoît, thank you."**

 **Benoît inclined his head. "Then I'll be back shortly." The coach swayed as he backed down the step and disappeared beyond the view of the window.**

 **"What am I to do with you, my intrepid Musketeer?" The Duchess of Savoy twisted to lift the bench on the facing seat, made a mental note to replace the emergency supplies her husband always kept on hand in all their vehicles and collected a water skin, spirits and bandages, setting them on the floor of the coach close to hand. She rearranged her oldest riding skirt in an effort to decorate it with as little blood as possible and set to work cleaning up the bloody young man sprawled on the forward facing bench.**

 **The face, she realized, as the features began to emerge, was familiar. A blade of a nose between angular cheek bones, caterpillar moustache all but hiding the upper lip, beard a rough shape of several days growth. She did not know his name, but she recognized him as one of the young men who'd been with Tréville from the inception of the Musketeers three years ago; the marksman, if she was remembering right. That discovery roiled a chill, raising the hair on her arms and the back of her neck.**

 **She trusted Tréville implicitly, he would not send an assassin to creep about her home unbeknownst. Richelieu, though, would have no such qualms.**

 **Would this young man have consented to such a mission without Tréville's knowledge?**

 **Her husband, she knew, would have had no reservations in responding to such a threat. By his reasoning, a massacre would not be out of the realm of a proportionate response. Thank the Lord he must have continued his chase into France. She hoped the second Musketeer did not cross Victor's path accidentally.**

 **TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**They waited, silent in the deep dusk, Christine praying the Musketeer would not groan and give them away, for the perimeter guards would have to pass on their rounds before they could go any further.**

 **They'd smuggled the young man into the game keeper's cottage for the remainder of daylight, Benoît - after a staged request to take the rest of the day off when they'd returned to the stables with the quickly scrubbed coach - going back to watch over the injured man until they could move him again.**

 **"Now," Christine said urgently, as soon as the crunch of booted feet atop the hard crust of snow faded into the distance.**

 **A low growl stopped them in their tracks.**

 **"Get back, get back!" the duchess hissed, throwing herself forward in a slippery slide across the top of the icy snow. Her cloak billowed out behind her as she set her feet to skate as far as she could from the pair behind her, just managing to snatch the dog's collar as she sailed past. She went down in a graceless heap, Louis throwing his head back to howl once before taking advantage of her prone position to slobber wet kisses all over her face with his massive tongue.**

 **"Your Grace!" The pair of guards were at her side before she could push away the dog and struggle to her feet. "You should not be out here alone, without even a lantern!"**

 **"I know every step of this route, even in the dark," she replied tartly, allowing them to untangle her cloak and help her to her feet. "I do not need a light."**

 **"You're wet now. Arden, escort her back to the house, I'll take Louis and continue with the rounds."**

 **"Both of you be on your way, I will continue to nurse's on my own." She bent to caress the mastiff's huge head. "I will take Louis though, he will keep me upright the rest of the way. It did not occur to me how slippery it would be down here where the sun does not reach."**

 **They knew better than to argue, Christine's command of the staff was equal to her husband's.**

 **"You're sure you're all right, Your Grace?"**

 **"I'm fine. It is not far to Becca's door and Louis is a perfect gentleman." And the perfect guard dog. He'd been named by her husband and assigned as her personal guard dog, trained from a puppy to her scent. In the chaos of the last several hours, she'd forgotten it was his habit to accompany the guards on their nightly rounds.**

 **She grabbed his collar again, adjusted her cloak and stepped out with her duchess persona firmly intact. The men trailed behind at a discreet distance, waited until the door of the cottage opened and then resumed their rounds.**

 **"What now, Wren?" Becca had been waiting for her in the dimly lit entry way, alerted by the commotion. She reached for the cloak Christine swirled from her shoulders. "You did not bring Louis just for a visit."**

 **"No, Nana, Benoît will be along shortly, with a man in need of sanctuary."**

 **"A man?" The old woman's head turned sharply.**

 **Becca, too, was going blind, though she could still distinguish light and darkness and a lamp was kept burning constantly for her. A servant saw to it daily, though for the next few days Christine would make sure she did that herself.**

 **Like Moss, Becca had an uncanny ability to navigate her space; she turned now, expectantly, toward the door, leaning on the stout walking stick she had recently acquired.**

 **"He will wait until the guards are long past. Louis came to investigate, probably a fortunate thing since he will need to know this unfamiliar scent has my approval, else he will give us away. There were Musketeers camped just the other side of the border. Victor's secretary has been spirited away, or so he thinks," Christine relayed quickly, holding nothing back." In retaliation, whether they had anything to do with it or not, my husband and his men massacred the regiment of Musketeers; only two managed to escape. It appeared one went deeper into France, this one came toward Savoy. We found him staggering along the road. He bears a head wound. Benoît says he came around several times during the day - we stashed him in the game keeper's cottage - but cannot seem to hold on to consciousness more than a few moments. I've sent a pigeon already to Tréville, but in the meantime, the Musketeer needs attention and I can't keep going to the game keeper's cottage without rousing suspicion."**

 **"We will contrive," Becca replied, without a trace of concern. "Let me gather -"**

 **The front door swung inward to admit a staggering Benoît, the tall Musketeer draped over his shoulder like a sack of grain, Benoît's shorter stature requiring him to kick the man's feet out of the way with each step forward.**

 **"To the attic, Benoît." Becca did not waste time, she turned toward the stairs and started back up, thumping each stair as she went. Her bones might be slowing her down, but age had stolen none of her mental agility. "Then you must collect a basin and water from the kitchen. Christine, you know where the supplies are, bring them."**

 **"Wait." Benoît had both hands gripped firmly around the Musketeer's hips. "I'll be needing the light," he stated, making sure Becca could 'see' the grin in his voice with her ears. Her keen sense of humor kept the estate retainers on their toes, constantly wary of her legendary pranks.**

 **"Well then, Christine, hand me that lamp, I'll light us up."**

 **Her Grace collected the small oil lamp that burned day and night upon the small cabinet in the entryway, depositing it in the wrinkled hands, and stepped back to watch the pair ascend the stairs.**

 **"Don't be a laggard with those supplies, girl. Bring blankets, too, we'll have to make up a pallet for him."**

 **"Wait a moment, Benoît." Louis was sniffing the boots of the boneless Musketeer. "Let Louis get his fill and I'll take him to the kitchen on my way to the stillroom."**

 **It took several minutes, during which time Benoît's knees began to sag under the extra weight. Louis was finally satisfied and followed willingly after his mistress, anticipation making him slobber, for he had come to associate this place with a juicy bone that kept him gnawing happily for hours.**

 **The cottage was big enough to be roomy and small enough to be cozy. Becca's one request, when she'd finally agreed to be retired, was an addition to the cottage that had been her bequest on Christine's marriage and removal to Savoy.**

 **Christine made her way through a sitting room, a low fire banked and screened for the night, skirted a diminutive, round table in the breakfast parlor and pointed the mastiff to his assigned spot next to the warm kitchen fireplace as she hurried through into the large, airy room the duke had caused to be added on to the house. A mélange of scents assailed her nose as she reached unerringly for the lamp Becca kept on the end of her work bench.**

 **Christine had learned her organizational skills from Becca - a place for everything and everything in its place. Though it was a habit of long standing, the practice had made it easy for Becca to continue to live alone as she preferred, navigating her home easily by long established sensory memory.**

 **The duchess' fingers closed around the flint and steel cheek by jowl with the lamp. She lowered the wick as soon as it flared to life, hurriedly gathered a basket of potential remedies, collected blankets from the cedar-lined storage cabinet, then took the lamp to the parlor where visitors could be reasonably expected to need light and turned it up, placing it on the table in front of the window.**

 **She was as skilled at traversing the layout of the house in the dark as Becca. She'd spent many, many hours here, often teasing she was far more at home in Becca's snug little sanctuary than she was in her own, though she had fallen instantly in love with the high, soaring towers and broad outdoor walkways of the castle that had become one of her many homes upon her marriage.**

 **Christine ran lightly up the stairs, turning to push the door open with her back. The Musketeer lay sprawled on the floor just beyond the sweep of the door, Benoît was makeshifting curtains from a pile of old moth-eaten blankets to cover the large oriole window at the east end of the space, while Becca pushed and shoved at old trunks and dusty furniture, smothering her sneezes in an elbow.**

 **It was not as cold as the duchess had feared, her breath did not fume like pipe smoke, but neither was it warm enough for an injured man. He'd been slogging through snow for half the night and a good part of the day in just shirt and britches, t'would be miraculous did he not have lung fever already.**

 **"We should put him as close to the chimney as we can, it will provide some warmth."**

 **Christine set her supplies on an ancient escritoire and collected a broom conveniently leaning against the doorjamb. Clouds of dust flew in every direction, accompanied by more sneezes from all but the silent Musketeer. Benoît went to help Becca with the creation of a little nest arranged inside a seemingly haphazard semi-circle of cast-off relics around the fireplace chimney, into the middle of which they dragged an old, hurriedly beaten mattress. Christine mounded cedar-scented blankets over it, and together, she and Benoît eventually managed to rearrange the Musketeer atop them, though he would likely add a scraped back to the list of injuries he had sustained on this benighted mission.**

 **"There is warm water in the kettle over the kitchen fire. Bring a bucket as well as a basin," Becca ordered Benoît, creaking to her knees beside the pallet. "Christine, help me get him out of these foul clothes. You will need to smuggle a nightshirt down from the big house, for the moment he will have to be as he came into this world." Her fingers had found the bandage around his head and shoved it off, then set to exploring the furled edges of the sluggishly bleeding cut across his forehead. "This was made by a club, not a sword. There is more damage beneath than on the surface. It does not appear to need stitches, but there may be bleeding inside the skull."**

 **"I was afraid of that." Christine's worry notched up. The Duchess of Savoy was not unfamiliar with fatal wounds.**

 **Marie de Medici had been quite the opposite of an over-protective mother. Corpses and coups had featured regularly under her regime and she had included all her children in her political maneuverings.**

 **It was after all, how Christine had come to be married to the Duke of Savoy. As a** _fille de France,_ she had known herself to be a pawn in her mother's long-term strategy. As an avid chess player, the Daughter of France had been well aware a pawn could be promoted; she had not gone naively to her marriage bed. **She considered herself quite fortunate to have fallen head over heels in love with the gruff, rather cold-hearted man whose pivotal geographic location made him a powerful ally or enemy. Especially as it was her job to make certain Victor remained an ally.**

 **Benoît was clomping back up the attic stairs. Christine chased off her lingering thoughts and set her hands to the task of stripping the filthy clothes from the Musketeer. Becca directed Benoît where to set the pail and basin and followed behind with a damp cloth, efficiently whisking away blood and grime as Christine's depredations upon his clothing revealed the long, lean length of Musketeer.**

 **"I expect you can feel the swollen eye," Christine observed as they rearranged the blankets to cover him. "It is the color of dried plums, but there are also multiple bruises about his neck and shoulders."**

 **"He's cold as a skinned March hare. Are there more blankets? Lung fever could take him quicker than the head wound."**

 **Benoît was handing them over before Becca had finished the sentence.**

 **"Take these clothes down to the fireplace in Becca's room and make sure they are completely burnt. What did you do with your own?" Christine gathered up the garments she'd cut off the Musketeer, exchanging them for more blankets.**

 **"Hid 'em til I can sneak 'em to the trash heap on the next burning day."**

 **"Good. I think it would be prudent for you to return to the stables, we'll manage here."**

 **"I should light you back up to the house."**

 **"Louis will see me home. In the meantime -" Christine rose.**

 **Benoît hastily shifted aside the bundle of stinking clothing as she stretched to hug him.**

 **"Thank you for your assistance, but more than that, your loyalty. I could not have done this without you."**

 **He bore the hug without flinching, though not without trepidation. She was a princess and a duchess; he was a lowly stable hand, even if his position as her personal guard gave him some extra status among the servants. She was his savior in a very real sense, having taken him off the streets of Paris when he'd been no more than five or six. And then she'd fought practically tooth and nail to keep him when her screeching witch of a mother had found him waiting in her personal suite of rooms one afternoon, amusing himself before the mirror on her dressing table by decking himself out in her jewels. That memory was a precious relic he kept locked away tight in a space in his mind reserved for his infatuation with his Madonna. He had grown to manhood without betraying himself, but these incidental hugs were torture.**

 **"And I think you are insane to keep him here on the estate under the duke's nose, but you will do as you please," he said with that air of weary resignation her madder schemes engendered. "I owe you my life, Your Grace, you may do with it as you please. I pray only that you will not let the duke put me on the rack when he finally loses patience with you," he added mournfully.**

 **Christine's low laugh had a slight edge to it. "This could be it, but I will send Moss to warn you so you may take flight if need be. Thank you," she repeated, imbuing her voice with all the genuine gratitude she felt. "The two of you are the best conspirators any patriot of France could ask for."**

 **The old woman harrumphed, Benoît, an odd darkness suffusing his swarthy features even in the dim light of the single oil lamp, fled - sedately - to the shelter of the stairs.**

 **Savoy was tolerant of the odd trio of retainers she'd brought to the marriage; her aging nurse, a blind man, and a youthful page barely ten years younger than the duchess. Christine made sure he never had reason to doubt they were as loyal to Victor as they were to her.**

 **"Wait, Benoît!" Becca called after him. "Before you go, bring up a mug of the chocolate, the pot is in the inglenook."**

 **"Let me get these clothes on the fire and I'll be right back," the young man responded, clattering down the steps.**

 **Christine collected the smelling salts from the basket of supplies she'd brought up; uselessly, since they did not even produce a twitch from their unconscious patient. "Should we try to get a little water into him?"**

 **"No, if the salts won't reach him, he is deeply unconscious. It would be kinder to let him drift away than to choke him to death."**

 **"What do we do then?"**

 **Becca was pulling the edges of the head wound together. "Hold this while I apply the bandage." She had cleaned it thoroughly and patted it dry before applying a bit of arnica. Christine leaned across to pucker the flesh around the wound as Becca expertly placed the gauze, then it smoothed honey around the edge. "He has young flesh, musculature that is firm and well-contoured. Is he as handsome as your husband, my little Wren?" It was her one regret, losing her eyesight; she could no longer ogle the young men.**

 **An inelegant snort met this query. "You know I have eyes only for my husband, dearest one, but yes, he is quite handsome. Dark-haired, with a luxuriant mustache and what must have been a well-groomed beard not too long ago. He's a bit scraggly, but they have been camping on our border for the past ten days. Likely amenities were scarce; I cannot hold his unkemptness against him."**

 **"Christine."**

 **The duchess looked up, meeting the blind gaze directed at her with a rueful smile. "I know, Nana, but what was I to do? I could not just leave him for Victor to find and finish the job, or to die alone in the snow. I do not believe the Musketeers had anything to do with** Cluzet's **disappearance, though perhaps they were sent here as a decoy. If that's the case, it was without their knowledge, for they were as unprepared as raw recruits for the savagery perpetrated upon them. There were twenty dead in the camp, a handful only had drawn weapons."**

 **The milky eyes closed briefly. "Twenty comrades," she breathed as if over her prayer beads. "No wonder the spirit has fled the body's shell."**

 **Christine watched as the old woman reached with absolute accuracy to collect a cold hand, chafing it between her worn, callused palms.**

 **"Turn down the light as low as it will go, we don't want it showing through up here, and collect some hot bricks, then you must go, Wren."**

 **She was back to** ** _Wren_** **, the old childhood nickname comforting as a warm blanket. She was only Christine when the subject was a of a serious nature, or prefacing a scold. "Why do you call me Wren?"**

 **"In all these years you have never asked, child. Why not?"**

 **Christine tilted her head consideringly. "I don't know. I suppose because it became such a beloved pet name it never occurred to me to ask its origin."**

 **"Well I will tell you, for it will make you laugh." Becca continued to chafe the warming fingers. "When you were just a wee thing, you were plain as a wren, without even a hint of the beauty that was to be your legacy. You were my little wren from the moment I laid eyes on you, bouncing on your tiny** ** _derriere_** **without a stitch of clothing on. You chirped like a baby bird too, whenever someone came into the room, until they picked you up for a cuddle. Plain as a little brown wren, but with such confidence that you would be the center of attention where ever you went. And because of it, you were. It took an age to grow into your father's eyes and your mother's cheekbones, but your unassailable self-assurance was enough until you grew into the traits you inherited from your parents. The combination has turned you into a breathtakingly beautiful woman."**

 **As predicted, it did make Christine laugh. "Oh Nana, you are such a lark!" She laughed merrily. "As if I could ever be breathtakingly beautiful!"**

 **Between them, the blanket-covered Musketeer stirred.**

 **TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

**He felt ... heavy ... as if while he'd slept his bones had been hollowed out and refilled with lead. Someone had poured sand beneath his eyelids as well and pulled out his finger and toe nails. He could not fix upon a single spot on his body that did not hurt, and his ears rang as if he lay at the bottom of a tolling bell tower. Maybe they'd taken his tongue, too. The firebrand of a stump they'd left had swollen to fill his mouth like a breaching whale, making it difficult to breath.**

 **But he could tally these tortures in his mind at least, so he must be yet alive.**

 **There'd been voices in the darkness, calling dolefully... his name, the names of his comrades ... incessantly, over and over, like a watch of nightingales. And above them all, the startled, high-pitched cry of a boy. The voices followed him to consciousness, a dream he could not shake, dragging at him, attempting to pull him back down into the impenetrable darkness. Not even the ringing in his ears drowned out the mournful sound of those voices.**

 **He knew he lay on his back and that there was softness beneath him. The tension of opposites - exquisite warmth and softness beneath an anguishing pain - only created further anxiety. A mind devious enough to apply both simultaneously was a diabolical mind indeed.**

 **Perhaps he had died after all, and been judged worthy only of eternal damnation.**

 **Another voice joined the shrill cacophony, a whisper of sound that caught his attention because it was only a whisper, a thread he could catch and hold onto among the dissonant, shrilling voices.**

 _"Qui êtes-vous?_ _Comment vous appelez-vous?"_ ** _Who are you? What is your name?_**

 **Who wanted to know his name? Could they not hear all the other voices calling it endlessly? Was it a trick, like the softness under the anguish? If he revealed his real name, would it end the torture? Would it extinguish the unceasing voices? Would there be a quick, merciful death?**

 ** _René, my name is_** _René_ __ _ **d'Aramitz,**_ **but the words were stuck in this throat, they would not pass between his teeth and across his lips.**

 **"He is coming around at last, hand me that salve, Wren!"**

 **He heard the words, though he did not understand their meaning until a lightness slicked over his dry, cracked lips. He was lifted oh-so-carefully and a drop of ... warmth, something moist glided across the slickness.**

 **"Should we not be giving him water to begin with?"**

 **"If he can keep it down, the chocolate will act upon him as both sustenance and liquid, lending a little false strength to begin with."**

 **"Benoît said he could get him to drink very little, the few times he was alert enough to take water."**

 **His lips parted instinctively and one drop, then another, slid over what was left of his burning tongue. The warmth felt cool in his mouth, and sweet, and most of all - moist. A few drops more and the stub of his tongue began to lengthen, the burning sensation receding. The arm supporting his shoulders lifted him a little higher; a spill of liquid, perhaps a spoonful, pooled at the back of his throat and slid down. He swallowed and felt the fluid slide whoosh down his throat to glide through his chest and splash into his stomach. Which clenched, but did not immediately spew it back up.**

 **The rim of a mug pressed against his bottom lip and he discovered he did still have a tongue, it stretched involuntarily to taste the tremble of chocolate hovering at the mouth of the mug and an entire mouthful slid like silk over the unfurling appendage.**

 **A sorcerous potion; it beguiled the befuddled mind. And reminded him of home.**

 **"** _Qui êtes-vous?_ _Comment vous appelez-vous?"_

 **" René ... my name is ... René ... d'Aramitz."**

 **"At least we have something to call you now. My name is Becca, René, how many fingers do you see?"**

 **"The swollen eye appears to be in sympathy with the left, it does not wish to inspect your fingers, Becca."**

 **"Aramis ..." He felt his fingers twitch, though the soft voice above had the right of it. His eyelids must have been sealed shut with hot wax. His hand wanted to explore them, but he had less control over his limbs than a newborn babe, the fingers did no more than tremble a little at his command to lift. The mug had been removed when he'd spoken, it returned now, with measured pressure, allowing another mouthful of the liquid gold to slide down his parched throat. His stomach churned, but made no other argument as another followed, then another.**

 **"Wait a bit for more, he's in no shape to be hanging over a bucket. We'll see if this settles. Soak a pad with the hypericum solution to put on the eye, it will alleviate some of the pain and swelling."**

 **The journey back down to the softness beneath was in itself a mild form of torture. His mind knew the change in elevation was slight but the pressure in his head, lying down again, increased by an entire fife and drum corp. The voices were calling again, insistently, angrily, demanding his attention. The voices of his men.**

 **His dead men.**

 **He knew they were dead, he knew he was alive; but their voices were so clear and comprehensible, he was certain he would find them ranged around him if only he could open his eyes. He could hear the confusion in their questions -** ** _where are we, what happened to us, what are we to do_** **.**

 **And over it all the plaintive cry of a boy wailing for his mother.**

 **It was to have been a lark, an easy two-day ride to the Savoy border, set up camp, run some drills, war game a few scenarios, break camp and head back to the garrison refreshed and complacent. Allard, their youthful drummer, had been wildly joyful when Aramis had agreed to let him come along. Marsac had not been happy about watching over a twelve-year-old boy, but the child was - had been - a favorite among the men and everyone had looked out for him.**

 **Twenty men dead. Twenty distinct voices bleating at him to fix things and be quick about it. "Leave me alone!" he cried in return. "Just leave me alone!"**

 **The hands upon his body stilled. A hushed, "Do as he says," and Aramis felt the brush of skirts against his hands before someone tucked a blanket beneath them, then tucked it over his shoulders as well. The faint light behind his eyelids faded, leaving a yawning darkness in its wake.**

 **He was alone with the ringing voices that would not be silent. Fear slicked his entire body in a cold sweat. He could not conjure words to reignite the pale light, nor stop the moan that crawled up his throat on a choking exhale.**

 **His men. His dead men. Who, behind his closed eyelids, appeared as mist-shrouded wraiths, coming for his soul.**

 **TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**"** _Chéri,_ you know we cannot save him if he does not wish it."

Christine made a sharp, dismissive gesture. "Then we must convince him that he wishes it," she hissed. "We must keep him alive until Tréville arrives, then we can wash our hands of this horrid affair."

Victor knew she corresponded regularly with her brother; he trusted her to keep it familial. She knew he had business with Spain; she trusted him to keep it from becoming treasonous.

"You risk the lives of all those loyal to you on this estate," Becca warned. "Mine I do not count so important, but you and the others are young; measure wisely."

"Do not dare smother him in his sleep and claim otherwise. I will know; you know I will know," the duchess whispered fiercely, knowing Becca's every instinct would be to protect her fledgling. "Tréville will sort it out with Victor. We will not be implicated. His troop did not return home at the appointed hour, the captain simply came looking for his men. In the natural course of events, he would turn to us when he finds the camp. There will be nothing suspicious about his turning up here."

"You are missing the point entirely. You cannot just lead him down here and hand over his Musketeer."

"We'll put him ... back in the gamekeeper's cottage and ... and have Louis appear to lead Tréville to the Musketeer. I will tell him to bring clothing. It will be a game to Louis, he already knows the Musketeer's scent."

"It will not be a game to our lord and master, missy, if he suspects you have had a hand in this."

"Then we will have to make certain he does not suspect. You must take a turn for the worse for a few days so I have a reason to be down here regularly."

Both heads jerked around at the sound of the drawn out moan from the little nest inside the barricade.

"It will be even more difficult to get rid of a body if he dies, you know." Christine scrabbled to reopen the hole they'd closed.

Their Musketeer's chest was heaving like Louis' ribs after a bout of rabbit chasing, a hallow moan running like a thread through the teeth-chattering panting. The blankets were bunched in tight-fisted fingers, his bare feet hanging out the bottom. Sweat pooled in the hollows just below the clavicle bones and the shallow indentation that fluttered in his throat with the beat of his heart.

His sweat broadcast the sour stench of fear, a smell both women recognized instantly. Instinct had them exchanging a glance, despite Becca's sightlessness.

Christine's skirts pooled as she knelt again and pried the blanket out of his right hand.

Becca, using an ancient, dust-shrouded footstool as a prop, lowered herself back down on her knees as well, leaning over to sweep a hand through his hair. "You're safe here, no need to fear."

 **A great shuddering breath heaved through the slender, recumbent frame.**

 **"Porthos ... tell Porthos ... brother ... so sorry ... stupid sorry."**

 **"No." Christine hardened her voice. "You must stay alive long enough to pass this message along if you want it delivered. You are not mortally injured, but you must choose to live, René, you** ** _must_** **choose to live."**

 **"All ... dead." This was delivered in a flat, emotionless tone, then rose, without warning, to a shrieking wail. "ALL DEAD. ALL DEAD!"**

 **The old woman clapped a hand over his mouth, muffling the mournful, repetitious keening. "We'll have to drug him," she said practically, pinching his nose with the other hand so he ran out of breath, though not for an inhuman length of time. "Mix an infusion of rosemary and yarrow, then add a good pinch of valerian."**

 **"Deal with the fever and put him into a healing sleep, wise."**

 **A howl rose from below, accelerating two hearts to nearly fainting. "** ** _Mon Dieu_** **!" Christine snatched up the lamp, her skirts wrapping around her legs as she frantically tried to stand. "Louis only howls like that when Victor is on the way."**

 **Becca, still holding his nose, whispered sharply. "Listen to me, you must be quiet or you will get us all killed, including Her Grace, the Duchess of Savoy. Do you understand?" She let him breath again.**

 **"Duch...ess..."**

 **"Do you think Victor heard?"**

 **"It doesn't matter." Becca released her pinched fingers. "Here, take this." She swiveled and heaved the footstool at Christine, fear lending strength as she shoved it toward the duchess, who grabbed it by a leg, hurriedly swinging the lamp aside. "If he is already in the house, say we were searching the attic for this piece of furniture. If he is not in the house, run to the stillroom. I will follow you down and placate him until you can catch your breath and join us. Mind the light, if he's coming from the front he will note its swift passage."**

 **Trembling as if with the ague, Christine slammed the attic door open with the unwieldy stool and tripped down the stairs. She blew out the light before she could see the windows and slid silently past the howling, capering hound in the entryway, muffling another sneeze as she dropped the dusty footstool in place before Becca's armchair and gave it a whack in passing before racing to the stillroom. She heard Becca thumping down the stairs as the front door slammed open and another howl split the night.**

 **"CHRISTINE!"**

 **"Whatever is the matter with you, Victor?" Becca demanded, as her cane somehow managed to tangle itself between the dog's legs, who subsequently skidded into his master's ankles causing the duke to have to jump the dog, just as Becca stepped into his path and they all went down in a snarl of legs, human and canine, the dog whining, the male cursing and Becca wheezing, though she had made sure to land on Victor.**

 **Christine, recognizing her cue, ran back toward the entryway screeching as well, the re-lit lamp held high. "What is going on? What's all the noise about? Good God! What happened? Are you hurt?" She slammed the lamp down on the entryway table and rushed to Nana, pulling her from beneath the scrabbling dog as Victor pushed himself to his feet, still roaring.**

 **"What in the name of all that's holy is going on here?!"**

 **Christine glanced over at him, saw he was rubbing a likely bruised elbow, but otherwise looking quite his usual ferocious self and returned her attention to the old nurse, whose slackened muscles were still quivering beneath her hands. "Are you all right, dearest? Come, let's get you to your chair so you may sit and put your feet up. I've told you and told you, you must keep a light on at least in the entryway. If you refuse to let Adria do it, then I will just have to come down daily myself to trim the wick and renew the oil. Victor, make yourself useful, lend a hand here," she barked. "Are you hurt?" she asked again.**

 **"Nay, these old bones are not as fragile as they look, though they will be bruised as any prizefighter by morning. What was all that racket about, Victor? Between you and the dog, I thought there must be a fire in the house," Becca snapped tartly. "Hush, Louis. You're enough to wake the dead all by yourself. Sit!"**

 **The dog sat, tongue lolling in a doggy grin, apparently very pleased with himself.**

 **"Just like a male," Becca grumbled as she allowed the duke and duchess to lower her into her chair in the parlor, "prancing around like an idiot, howling at the moon."**

 **"Why are you down here in the middle of the night? Why were you in the attic?"**

 **"Even were I blind as a bat, I would still know 'tis not the middle of the night, Your Grace. It is barely past sunfall and Christine was helping me find my old footstool in the attic. Yes," she preempted before the duke could get the wind up again, "I could have waited until tomorrow during daylight hours, but my leg is bothering me and Christine was kind enough to help an old woman out." She thumped her cane imperatively. "Now what in the world were you yelling down the house for?** ** _Is_** **there a fire?"**

 **The duke sputtered indignantly. "My wife was not at home when I arrived. No one knew where she was; naturally I went looking for her."**

 **"And where have you been that you came rampaging home, expecting your wife to be at your beck and call?"**

 **"Are you alright," Christine asked her husband quietly. "Did you hurt your arm?" He was continuing to rub it.**

 **Victor dropped his hand self-consciously. "It's nothing. Why are you down here with just the dog for protection? We've had this discussion repeatedly."**

 **"I know we have, darling, and I've listened conscientiously and made my own choices." Christine dimpled prettily at her spouse, batting her eyelashes demurely. "I did not know when you might be home so I came down to visit Nana and time got away from us."**

 **"I will ask you again,** ** _madame_** **, not to go about the grounds on your own." The duke knew better than to order his wife, she would be out and about just to irritate him, but occasionally, she acceded to a reasonable request. "You are well aware we had been in a battle, I cannot believe you are so naive as to imagine the countryside completely safe."**

 **It took an effort of will not to clench her jaw, knowing the carnage her husband had wreaked upon the band of Musketeers. "I am not in the countryside, I am on our estate and unless you mean to keep me tied to the bedpost in our chamber, I will come and go as I please, Your Grace." It required no effort at all to turn from steel-spined duchess to** ** _coquette_** **. "And lest you contemplate the bedpost for anything other than sport, you can rest assured I will be on my way home to France before you can take your next breath." Christine breathed an internal sigh of relief as his lips softened with a twitching attempt to stifle a betraying smile.**

 **"Other than sport, eh?" The hardness in his eyes gave way to a twinkle. "I'm inclined to throw you over my shoulder and haul you back to the house right now,** ** _Your Grace_** **."**

 **When he smiled, he was the most handsome man on the face of the earth. The duchess turned her lips up in a coy smile. "Be still my heart. Becca," she bent to air kiss the old woman on both cheeks in typical French fashion, "I will be back tomorrow. Please try not to overdo it. You know I will send Gigi or Fayette down to help Adria if need be. Do not be too stubborn to accept assistance."**

 **The old lady harrumphed, thumping her cane against the floor. "I'll take help when I need it, and I'll let you know when I am in need. Off with you then." She squeezed the hand that had taken hers. "And don't be wandering down here alone tomorrow if the lord and master's thinkin' there might be marauders loose in our forests. I'll be fine on my own, though if you wanted to lend me that handsome boy for a day or two, that would be fine," Becca offered gleefully. "I wouldn't mind if you sent Benoît to fetch and carry for me while these old legs are acting up."**

 **"Wretch." Christine giggled, slipping her hands around her husband's arm. "I will send him over tomorrow, but I will be down to check that you are not running him ragged."**

 **"Perhaps he could even sleep here for a few nights!" The old woman cackled, her jollity only slightly feigned. Her well known penchant for handsome young men would be the perfect cover for the help she would need to care for the equally fine-looking young male biding in her attic. For a few days at least, she would be doubly blest. "Off with you now. I'll be off to bed soon so I can scheme on how long I can keep that boy on the premises."**

 **"You, my dear Becca, are a conniving old fiend," the duke said with fond asperity.**

 **"Privilege of age, Your Grace, privilege of age."**

 **"May your dreams be sweet indeed," Christine said over her shoulder, escorting her husband to the entryway. "Louis, come, we're leaving. Goodnight, Becca!"**

 **TBC**


	7. Chapter 7

_As noted at the beginning of the story, this chapter contains explicit non-consensual intimacy in this chapter. Consider it rated M for Mature._

His mind was not working right. He was blissfully unencumbered with the yoke of the paranormal his mother wore like an honored pendant, which was why he knew his mind was not working right. At least the ring of silent watchers were no longer screaming at him, though the air shimmered with a pearly opalescence.

No more shouting; no more wailing. They huddled together, the edges of the translucent forms merging like wisps of smoke. Their concern touched him with the softness of the brush of angel wings.

"CHRISTINE!"

Head whirling, Aramis rolled frantically to his knees, goose bumps pimpling every inch of bare skin as the blankets slid off.

The shimmer stirred disquietingly. He could not feel the hands laid upon him, the strange, silvery grey of the fingers clutching at his arms, but he did feel an internal tug of warning, a sense of panic emanating from the insubstantial forms reaching for him.

He heard them now like a whispering Greek chorus: _'You must be quiet or you will get us all killed, including Her Grace, the Duchess of Savoy.'_

Lucidity pierced the foggy veil. _Holy Mother of Christ._ Aramis sagged back down, practically on his face, choking off a cough as the mattress huffed a dusty plume. Unlikely another man besides her husband would be shouting for the duchess in such a way.

Which meant ... the Duke of Savoy! Here was the perfect opportunity to get word to Tréville. The captain might cordially dislike the man, but the duke was at least an ally.

 _'You must be quiet or you will get us all killed, including Her Grace, the Duchess of Savoy.'_ He heard the words clearly, though not in the voices of the dead.

Surely that pronouncement had not been meant to implicate the Duke of Savoy?

Aramis rolled over, putting a hand to his aching head. He shoved himself to his knees again, panting through clenched teeth, threw a corner of a blanket over his shoulder and pulled it together around his middle.

Just because he was thinking did not mean he was thinking clearly. Had that voice been warning him against Savoy?

In either case, the voice whispered in his ear again, _'You must be quiet or you will get us all killed, including Her Grace, the Duchess of Savoy.'_ The blanket slithered from his shoulder.

The sound of a crash enmeshed with a howling dog and a fluently cursing male gave him pause.

Why would they be afraid of the duke? Unless ... but no, that could not be. Savoy's politics aligned with the French, the duke was married to Louis' sister, his loyalty pledged to France.

And yet _\- 'You must be quiet or you will get us all killed, including Her Grace, the Duchess of Savoy.'_

His ghoulishly dead men gestured frantically, clothes drenched in silvery trails of blood from gaping wounds. Edouard had been shot in the head, Cyrille had a saber wound through the heart. Allard ... no, he would not think about Allard. He was seeing macabre nightmares of the men he knew. Whispering, whispering, whispering, until his head roared with the sound as if they were screaming again.

He _must_ get word to Tréville. Hitching the blanket higher, Aramis pushed off the hill of blankets again, locked his knees and using the dusty furniture for support, edged around the inner circle of his prison.

Between the waning light seeping in around the edges of the covered windows and the strange pearly glow, he could see just enough to realize a mattress had been dragged inside a little fortress of furniture. A curvaceous armoire loomed threateningly, as if it were falling, then shrank back to its upright position. The spindly, scrolled legs of a dainty escritoire bowed like a sway-backed bovine and chest of drawers puffed out its chest.

Aramis dragged the back of his hand across his eyes. The chest of drawers deflated. The armoire became just a piece of furniture and the escritoire was once again a picture of gilded craftsmanship. And the scales fell from his eyes and his mind at the same time.

If he was in Savoy, his feet had betrayed him. Captive or free, his journey to Paris was at an end. Twenty dead men surrounded him and the Duchess of Savoy was afraid for her life. Something foul stalked this place.

The mingling forms separated and reformed around him as he tried to rise, formless hands pushing at him without force though with grave intent.

He let go of the blanket, loosed his death grip on edge of the plain, pine table that had served as his mounting block for rising and sank back down. "Soon," he whispered, "I will be with you soon." The softness of the blankets took his weight without a sound, though Aramis did not pull them around himself again. The ghosts, for they could be nothing else, drifted back to hover around the inside edges of the curtain wall. He knew this because even sightless, they still ranged around him behind his closed eyelids.

Cursing his mother, he loosed his grip on consciousness, too, grateful for the celestial curtain signaling the end of the act. His last thought, as he acknowledged his waiting comrades, was that someone else would have to tell Tréville.

The one good thing about being blind, Becca was well aware, was the ability to negotiate her surroundings in complete darkness. Not that she was called on to do it often, but in this situation, it was proving quite a blessing. She climbed the stairs to the attic, paused a moment just inside the door to recall how they had rearranged the furniture, and surged forward to part the curtain wall they'd hastily thrown up to surround her guest.

Benoît had had the sense to remain in her bedchamber when Victor had come hollering like a barbarian down the long, slope of lawns that surrounded her cottage. The youngster had dealt with the ruined clothes while he'd waited, efficiently reducing the evidence to a pile of ash beneath the glowing coals on the hearth. And then taken his leave, slipping out the back to swagger over to his current light'o'luv, whom, he'd informed Becca, he would dazzle so thoroughly with his manly prowess, she would gladly tell anyone who asked she'd spent the entire evening and night with him.

Becca had just laughed and copped a feel for herself before swatting him on the behind as he'd scooted out the door, laughing as well.

Christine had left the basket of supplies just where she knew Becca would be able to find it, unconcealed, but out of sight. Becca had added a few more things and headed for the attic stairs to make one last check on her patient before she took herself off to her solitary bed.

Now she put her basket down, made the difficult journey to her knees and reached to pat the blanket-covered chest of her patient. Though that was not where her hand landed. Instead of blanket, her fingers met pliant flesh, and not the hard-muscled skin and bones she'd encountered as they'd washed him.

That flesh reacted as any healthy male's would when stroked intimately. What had been cold and flaccid warmed with her attention, the sac swelling like a toad in the sun inside the cocoon of her hand. She sleeved his cock, felt its sweet engorgement stretching her loosely curled fingers and sighed her own bliss. Just the feel of a man's flesh swept a lovely flush of pleasure through her body.

Somewhere above where she'd knelt, a deep rumble, like a large purring cat, sounded, accompanied by a raspy whisper, " _Ahhhhhh, encantadoro uno,_ _eres tan generosa_. _Ardiendo por ti."_

If this was hell, Aramis decided he might as well stay. A little pain made the release all the more exquisite, and he was ever a willing partner, though it sat wrong with him not to have pleasured that partner first. He had no memory of having engaged in foreplay, but then he'd already established the fact his mind was playing fast and loose with reality. Maybe it was just another dream, this one exquisite.

If he had a choice, he'd take this one over phantasms any day.

Aramis woke wholly as warmth pooled on his belly, the contrast of heat and cold bringing him fully to consciousness. An oppressive, cold blackness met the first attempt to open his eyes, making him blink fearfully until the shadow shapes around him began to emerge from the cloaking darkness. A warm cloth whisked over his belly, then his cock, and the blankets were yanked into position so they could be pulled up around his shoulders again. Something warm pressed against the soles of his feet inside the hobbling blankets wrapped around his ankles.

"Can you sit up?"

The voice in his ear was ageless, the voice of experience tinged with a slight huskiness, the faint accent hinting of both France and the Italian states. For her, he would raise the dead. Aramis shifted to roll his elbows beneath him and pushed up, sucking air as twinkling lights sprayed across the new darkness behind his eyes. He thought he moaned, but the splintering pain slicing diagonally from the front of his skull to the back stole his breath, so maybe he hadn't. He could not free his hands from the entangling blankets fast enough to keep his head from exploding.

This must be what it felt like - for an instant - when one was shot between the eyes. This pain, however, went on and on, rendering him incapable of speech or action. A hand slid beneath the back of his neck raising his head, a decoction of ammonia and eucalyptus under his nose stimulating those momentarily paralyzed nerves that controlled breathing so he gulped air like sinner on a dunking stool.

"Another deep breath," the voice instructed, "another ... good ... one more."

The smell singed the inside of his nose, but each breath brought greater relief as the concoction sped up his heart rate, increasing the blood flow in the circulatory system.

"Never hold your breath when you head hurts, it only makes it worse." Becca stuffed a haphazard pile of pillows and cushions behind his back to prop him up, pulled the blankets back up around his shoulders and proceeded to redress the cut.

Aramis knew that. He was also aware instinct, as much as intellect, controlled bodily response.

"Where am I?" he panted, when he could finally draw breath enough to speak. "Who are you?"

"You are in my attic," the voice in the darkness replied serenely, "my name is Becca."

"Becca," Aramis repeated. "Becca ... who can see in the dark ... neither answer ... tells me much."

"Becca who is going blind and has learned to 'see' with her hands. I was Christine's nurse for many years and then her companion; now I am merely an old woman whose been repurposed and had a spare attic."

Aramis could hear the good-natured humor in her voice.

"What more do you want to know?"

Probably better not to ask - repurposed for what? "In what ... province ... is your ... attic?"

"You are in the Duchy of Savoy."

"So that was ... the Duke of Savoy ... earlier."

She made no answer to that, but then, he had not phrased it as a question. Aramis felt her seal the edge of a new bandage with sticking plaster. Her silence was as affirmative as needful. This was the voice that had whispered to him to he must be quiet or he would get them all killed, including the Duchess of Savoy.

"What happened ... to my men?"

Becca drew a wide-mouthed mug from its nest among the bandaging in the basket. "I do not know, though the Duchess believes they were slain in their sleep for the most part. She said few weapons had been drawn. The duke has our borders patrolled continuously, and yet we are still prey to French and Sicilian marauders."

"What could we possibly ... have had ... they wanted... bad enough to slaughter ... near two dozen men?"

The old nurse had been the only one in possession of the fact that Cluzet had been about to lay his suspicions before the duke. At the least, her Wren would have been repudiated, though Becca did not believe the duke capable of mercy, even where he loved. She had contacted Tréville, who had informed the cardinal, who had subsequently had Cluzet spirited away in the middle of the night. Only Becca, Tréville and Richelieu knew the Musketeers had been deployed as decoys, though Christine had guessed at the truth of it without recognition.

Hindsight - even for the mostly blind - was perfect. Becca supposed she should have anticipated the ruthlessness of Victor reprisal, Tréville would never have willingly sacrificed his men in such fashion, but neither had she been prepared to surrender the princess to a fate quite possibly worse than death.

It would not do to implicate the Duke of Savoy, though, the Musketeers were not known for backing down from any confrontation. If this one so much as suspected, he'd be dragging himself across the grounds to challenge the duke, which would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise.

"Men with the bloodlust in their veins require little provocation to murder, perhaps the absence of plunder provoked their wrath. I have broth, you must eat a little."

"Then if that ... was the Duke of Savoy ... I heard, I must have him ... get word to Tréville."

Becca combed her brain for any other dangling threads she should cut off. "He was home only briefly, there were rumors the band hit a village to our south."

"But ..." Aramis tried to arrange the puzzle pieces in his mind, without success. Something was off, but he could not quite bring the picture into focus. Why had they not made his presence known to the Duke of Savoy? "Am I ... does he think ... I ... I don't understand. I am Aramis of the King's Musketeers, if I did not ... tell you so ... before. I must inform Savoy of the ... circumstances. Get word to ... Tréville."

"Aramis - of the Kings Musketeers. You told us your name was René d'Aramitz." Becca heaved a theatrical sigh. "Christine could not leave you by the road when they came upon you this morning, she would not abandon a rabid dog, but we were afraid you were ... left behind ... you know, because you were injured."

"You thought ... I was one of the ... raiders?"

"We thought there were no survivors of the Musketeer encampment," she said with practiced dryness, "you were raving like a lunatic when they ran across you - nearly ran you over - as Benoît was driving my lady home from an estate visit," Becca embellished. She would have to make sure Christine knew the details of the story, just in case. "You were staggering down the middle of the road, a bloody French flag tied around your head."

He had wandered onto the estate of the Duke of Savoy? Perhaps his head had known his feet would not get him to Paris and turned him in the only direction help might be more readily had?

"Must get word ... to Tréville."

"Of course, I will make certain Christine is made aware of the changed circumstances, she will get a bird off to Paris first thing in the morning." Hopefully Tréville would be halfway to Savoy by then, Becca did not know how long she could maintain these charades. Christine must never know twenty men had died to keep her secret safe. The Musketeer must never know Victor had slain twenty innocent men. Victor must never know his wife suspected he was the culprit. Tréville would have to keep all their secrets and he was not a man who enjoyed lying.

Aramis' mind was still trying to process. "You would ... you would do ... that ... with a man ... you thought ... had murdered ... a regiment of Musketeers."

Oh what a tangled web we weave... Becca huffed a little cough. "I must apologize for that. I have very little sight and so I must find things by touch. You had moved and thrown off the blankets, both foolish endeavors given your condition." She paused, listening to the wet rasp of his breathing, though no shift in respiration gave her a clue which way to jump. "I expected to meet a blanket-covered chest, not such ... largess. I am an old woman, few such opportunities present themselves these days. I miss it. But I am sorry I took unfair advantage of you. I apologize."

Aramis rolled that around in his hollow, disordered mind and found little fault with her reasoning. Innumerable women had taken advantage of him, though he'd usually been quickly conscious. "Were I capable ... dear lady ... I would rise and make myself ... known ...to you ... as a man ... who loves women ... I took no ... offense."

"Good, for the momentary madness gave me pleasure as well. And I am relieved you are not a brigand." Also relieved his suspicions had been allayed. "You've a nasty gash that's addled your brains a wee bit, you'll need nourishment to speed the healing process. Now, I want you to take a little of this broth, it's an old receipt of my mother's, it's tasty, you won't even know it's medicine."

A spoon touched his lips and Aramis opened his mouth without thinking. And then he remembered, as he heard the spoon clink in the empty mug, that he did not want to live. He had passed his message, there was nothing more he must do. Perhaps God could repurpose him, now that he knew he was merely in an icy attic, in the hands of a crone who loved men as much as he loved women, not hell after all.

Diabolical woman. His addled mind was not so far gone as to fail to recognize he'd been drugged, a lethargic warmth was creeping over his body.

"I cannot move you alone, and I do not believe you are able to negotiate the stairs, so for the nonce, you will have to make do with these accommodations. Tomorrow we will resolve your situation, though you will remain here in my house until the master returns. He would not take kindly to Christine caring for another man, be he Musketeer or bandit, while he is away. Very likely not while he is in residence either, so you will resign yourself to my care until such time as we can contact Captain Tréville and turn you over to him." She shifted so she could use the table to rise and felt her way around the interior of the nest. "It is dark, I know, but can you see enough to know where I am? Benoît brought up a chamber pot, if you are capable; do not worry if you cannot make it, the blankets are plentiful and can be cleaned." She stooped at his feet, touching the earthenware pot.

"I ... can see." Thanks to his gleaming friends. Though he was unlikely to need it before night met day again. The broth had filled his belly and eased the pain in his head, even his breath came easier. He felt her behind him, easing bolsters and pillows out from under him, lowering him carefully back down to the mattress, fussing with the layers of blankets.

"Sleep is the best thing for you now. If you wake in the morning, do not try to come down until Benoît has arrived. It would be a great disappointment to have saved your life only to have you break your neck tripping down the stairs." She was beside him again, making splashing sounds. Tiny droplets splattered his cheek. "There is water here, in a bucket with a dipper, the broth sometimes makes one thirsty."

Aramis was fading quickly. "Tréville ..."

"We will make certain he is informed." Becca sat down on the dusty attic floor, burrowing beneath the blankets to find his hand. "I will sing you a lullaby about a naughty lady and her accommodating gentleman and you will sleep." She squeezed his hand, felt him squeeze back and began her roguish little ditty. The long, slender, callused fingers curled inside her palm relaxed before she'd finished the last verse.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

"Marsac ... I didn't find Marsac." Porthos' great chest heaved at the look on Tréville's face. He caught back the sob threatening to claw its way through the slats in his ribcage.

Tréville jammed his hands against his knees, bending at the waist, but not before Porthos had seen the tears coursing down his cheeks, now making tiny bore holes in the trampled snow. "No Aramis," he confirmed raggedly, choking on a rage so vile the snow should be hissing from the poisonous venom coursing through his veins. "Can't fathom how they got away, this was a massacre." His heart had been racing the whole way here, now it sent jagged shafts of pain up his left arm and across his chest, clamping an iron fist around his lungs.

They'd followed the carrion crows, circling above the clearing, visible from miles away.

 _Twenty men dead ten leagues southwest of the estate. Come quickly!_ He'd had another one shortly after the first message. _Spanish raiders on our borders; Musketeer contingent dead._ The first had been scrawled hastily, in the duchess' handwriting - a warning. The second, in the hand of Savoy - a portent.

What the hell had gone so wrong so rapidly? Their objective had been met, the cardinal's men had snatched Cluzet before the man could betray Christine. Tréville knew Savoy to be a man with an unholy temper, but to butcher twenty men in cold blood because his chancellor had gone missing seemed ... disproportionate to the offense. Even for Victor.

There was treason afoot, but he could not, at the present, be certain with whom or where it originated.

"She said you'd come here first."

The disembodied voice coming out of the predawn gloom startled both Porthos and Tréville. It jolted the captain's heart back into action, though his gasp was less about surprise than actually drawing air into his straining lungs.

Porthos' pistol was primed and pointing, his sword slicing at bits of drifting fog as he spun in a circle. To their left, a wraith stepped out of a tree trunk, gliding toward them like a spectre.

"It's me, Benoît, the duchess sent me to wait for you."

"Benoît! Porthos, he's a friend!" Tréville, reaching for Porthos, instead clasped a hand to his heart, willing it to settle back into a steady rhythm rather than jumping around inside his chest. "What the hell happened?" The pain was decreasing, enough at least that he could corral his thoughts and attempt to make some sense of this ... this slaughter. He straightened, slowly, stretching out a hand as the youth approached. "It's good to see you again, except ..."

"For the circumstances. Yes, sir. Are you alright?" The hand clutching Benoît's was sweat-slicked and icy. Briefly, he wondered if he was actually holding the captain up so desperate was that grip.

Porthos turned back to the captain, peering at him in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Tréville released his dire hold on the youth and squared his shoulders. "Who found my men?"

Benoît mentally scratched his head. Obviously they'd failed to think like a military captain; he was prepared with a 'what happened' answer, but not a 'who found them'. "I did, sir." That seemed the safest response. "The duke's been out chasing a bunch of Spanish raiders, they hit a village north of us a week ago. The duchess sent me to check the Musketeer camp just to be sure." He gestured at the gruesome sight surrounding them. "This is what I found." Unconsciously, he held his breath.

Neither Musketeer noticed. And he let it out on a little huff. "We didn't know what else to do besides contact you."

"Where is Savoy?"

Victor had not told his wife. Christine apparently did not trust her husband. Working with the cardinal, lying had been elevated to a second language, Tréville read and spoke it fluently, though each time his lips and tongue and eyes formed one, it left another scorch mark on his soul.

"Don't know." Benoît shrugged. While he was steadfastly loyal to the duchess, the duke had never treated him with anything less than respect. He changed the subject. "Two escaped the carnage; we found one."

"WHAT?!" Porthos, who had been ducking in and out of tent flaps popped up and swung around. In two strides he was back , grabbing the younger, slighter man by the collar of his coat. He literally picked him up, shoving his face into the youngster's. "Who? What's his name? Who did you find?"

"Aramitz, he said his name was Rene d'Aramitz!" Benoît knew better than to attempt to free himself from the giant holding him off the ground. He fell against the captain, who grunted and shoved him upright as the big man let him go. "I don't know the other name."

"Marsac," Porthos spat, "Marsac is not among the dead."

Marsac - who'd convinced Aramis that Porthos was holding him back from advancement. Marsac - who'd hammered such a monstrous wedge between Porthos and Aramis, Porthos had refused to join them on this assignment. Marsac - who'd stolen his best friend.

"Where is he?" Tréville asked urgently, "Where is my Musketeer?"

"We took him to Becca's, the duchess' old nurse has a house on the grounds. With the duke gone and all, the duchess couldn't take him to the big house."

"Of course not." Tréville accepted it without question. He'd known Rebecca since before the princess had been born, she'd been the one who'd gotten word to him of Cluzet's crazed denunciation of Christine.

What a mess!

"Take us to him," Porthos ordered.

"I can't-" Benoît found his toes scraping the ground again. This time he grabbed at the hands around his neck. "Not until after dark," he squawked, "no one on the estate can know he's there."

"Put him down, Porthos. Savoy is unpredictable, if he found a man in his home with only servants present..." he didn't finish the thought. He did stop his hand, unconsciously massaging over his heart, and glanced around again.

Scowling, Porthos dropped the youth less than gently and returned to his search.

Dawn's first fingers of light were limbering up on the horizon, shooting strands of amber and amaranth, cyclamen and honey through the fog, dipping pine needles in liquid gold, turning each drop of dew into rainbow prisms. Tréville did not see the beauty of the cold spring morning, he could not see beyond the vision of twenty dead men sprawled between the orderly rows of tents, the snow stained black with blood now several days old.

"I know Becca's cottage," he said at last, drawing a hand across his eyes. "We'll meet you in the woods there, as soon as it gets dark. In the meantime, I must see to the bodies. Is there a place we could get wagons and drivers? They should be on the way to Paris today if at all possible." He did not know which way to turn.

He could not ... there would be protocol ... even if Savoy ... Tréville briefly clutched his heart again. If Savoy had done this ... he could not finish any thought. One thing he knew, though, he'd best make sure Porthos was far, far away from that conversation, short as it was likely to be. He could not think about it now, there was too much else to do, but that part of his mind always problem solving was already at work. It did not require much cogitating to come to the conclusion Richelieu's machinations had somehow played a part in this catastrophe. But why would Savoy murder twenty men in cold blood? Twenty Musketeers?

"Never mind, we'll use Savoy wagons." After all, Savoy had sent a message, too. "We'll drive them ourselves. Go on back, Benoît, we'll be there shortly."

"What about the Musketeer?"

"We don't want the duchess in any trouble. We'll stash the wagons and return after dark to collect him."

"His name is Aramis." Porthos held a slashed and rifled pack close to his chest. He'd found the medicinal kit the marksman always carried, though he had brought the kit Aramis stocked in the infirmary as well, hoping against hope that his friend was one of the two still alive. "I ain't waitin' fer the night. Take us to him now," he demanded, shoving the pack at Tréville, though the captain did not take it, foiling Porthos' attempt to menace Benoît again.

"When we've taken care of the rest of our men, we will collect Aramis," Tréville stated implacably. He'd passed along the location of the training mission when asked, without even asking why the cardinal wanted the information. Richelieu's spontaneous interest should have set alarms bells ringing.

"Later then," Benoît said, backing away quickly with a fleeting touch to his forehead. He disappeared among the trees, the fog muffling the first sounds of hoof beats until they picked up speed and then faded from hearing all together.

Tréville closed his eyes, drew in as deep a breath as his still spasming chest would allow and went to their horses.

An ancient man servant, at least a hundred years old, Porthos judged, barred their entry into the fortress when the massive double doors finally opened to his marauder's pounding.

"Moss! You're still working?" Tréville exclaimed, stepping forward to stop Porthos from bodily removing the impediment to entering.

"Captain Tréville, what an unexpected pleasure!" The old man beamed - at Porthos - who cocked an eyebrow at the captain.

"Moss is blind," Tréville informed Porthos, "a long ago head injury, Christine took him into her retinue. May we come in? Please let the duke know we're here, he's expecting me."

"He is? Oh yes, he is." The old man was a first rate conspirator. "Of course he is, he told me to make you comfortable while you wait. He was called away and did not know when he would return. I wasn't sure when to expect you, though, so if you'll follow me, I'll have you set up in a jiffy. Come in come in, this place is cold as a frozen lake in winter, but cool as cucumber in summer. I'll leave you with your outer garments until we can get a fire going and the parlor warmed up for you to wait in." He opened the door wider.

"No, our errand cannot wait out upon His Grace's availability. You know he sent me a message?"

"About the raiding party," Moss said softly, "I am so sorry, Captain. You must have ridden straight through, you'll need to rest before making the return journey. I'll have beds made up..."

Tréville stopped the old man with hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, but as I'm sure you understand, we're anxious to make arrangements to transport our comrades back to Paris."

Moss was silent for a long moment. "Of course. I'll send a man to the stables to tell them to provide whatever you need, sir."

"Again, my thanks." Tréville squeezed the frail old bones lightly. "It is good to know you're still with her, Moss."

"And you also, Captain. The duchess is not here at present either, I will let her know you were here."

"Please do give her my regards."

"I will. Are you sure you won't come in and at least get warmed up? Eat something? You can't have had a decent meal in days to have arrived so quickly."

Captain Tréville glanced askance at Porthos, who shook his head. "Our errand has already been delayed too long."

"Of course, I understand. Follow the drive to the right, it leads directly to the stables."

"Goodbye, Moss." Tréville squeezed the old shoulder once more and let go. He was breathing easier by the time he swung into the saddle again and led the way around to the stables where grooms had already pulled out the first wagon and were harnessing horses.

 _TBC_


	9. Chapter 9

It had taken two wagons to accommodate the bodies. The captain had refused to pile one atop another like so much cordwood, he would not disrespect the dead in such a manner. His men lay cushioned upon slashed tents folded neatly into the bottoms of the wagons, their own blankets covering their mutilated forms, weapons by their sides. He could give them that dignity at least.

They'd had to stash the wagons deeper in the woods, then cooled their heels, literally, in the shepherd's hut Benoît had shown them to, for the remainder of the day. Though keeping Porthos leashed had been the equivalent of trying to tame a wild animal. Tréville had suggested they both get some sleep. Surprisingly, Porthos had wrapped himself in a blanket, and stretched his long length out on the floor. Though it had lasted about as long as it took the big Musketeer to pillow his head on the arms. Cursing, he'd rolled to his knees and resumed pacing.

Tréville, cursing as well, though under his breath, had given up any attempt to sleep and scrunched himself into a sitting position at the head of the bed, leaning against the wall, fighting a nausea that had only just begun to subside as the day had put itself to bed, allowing night to begin creeping in with its shadows.

And now they were moving stealthily through the dark, snowy forest, the muffling snow creating a sound barrier but leaving a wide swath of footprints Porthos was trying to eradicate with a formidable evergreen branch.

Tréville was not minded to erase their trail. Being unable to rest, his mind had been collecting various bits and pieces of evidence and lining them up. He had most of them sorted and cobbled back together though he could not know the details for certain until he confronted the cardinal.

Had Porthos not been in the room with him, he thought he might have swallowed a piece of lead, so great was his horror at the thoughts swirling in his head. He would have given his own life for that of the duchesses, willingly and without debate. But there was more to this than just Cluzet and something very rotten at the core of it. He not been asked if he'd been willing to sacrifice twenty men on the duchess' behalf because the cardinal had known the answer. The probability of the First Minister having made Tréville an accessory to the murder of his own men was extremely high.

He could not accuse Savoy of the massacre. Nor allow Christine to think he imagined Savoy the villain. God, he hated lying. He bit back a harsh sigh as the dimness of the woods began to lighten nearly imperceptibly and reached back to put a hand on Porthos' arm, stopping them both. There were footprints ahead, just inside the verge, he indicated Porthos should sweep until they reached them, then stepped carefully into the already made prints.

Porthos nodded his understanding. Fortunately the snow was not deep beneath the trees. He stepped precisely into the overlay of Treville's boot prints atop the first set of prints, swished away the last evidence of their passing and tossed the branch aside.

A lamp-cast shadow lit the snow beyond the sitting room window in a soft arc, burning steadily under the gloomy eaves of night. The light blinked twice and Tréville, checking for perimeter guards slid through the shadows.

Porthos, his hand on the door latch, the door partly open, was yanked back by his collar and shaken, just a little.

"We'll knock like civilized people do." Though the admonition was gently administered.

Porthos growled but acquiesced, though the door opened fully before he could knock.

"Hello again, Benoît." The greeting was low-voiced and rough. "Take us to my Musketeer and I need a word with the duchess."

"She's waiting for you." Benoît waved them toward the stairs.

Porthos bounded ahead, his long legs taking him up the stairs three and four at a time, Tréville a few steps behind, to avoid losing his manhood to those flying boot heels.

The closed door reverberated to the demanding knock, debated allowing itself to be smashed to smithereens, then held fast rather than splintering, though it trembled with the blow.

"OPEN UP! Or I'll break the damn door down!"

Tréville, with a pained look, shouldered Porthos aside and knocked again - politely. "It's Tréville and one of my Musketeers," he stated quietly.

A moment later the lock snicked, the door swung open and very pretty female threw herself into Tréville's arms. "Thank God, thank God! Jean-Armand! I've never been so terrified in my life!"

Tréville had braced a booted foot against the doorjamb just in case, keeping them both from tumbling back down the staircase. "You did well to send for me, poppet. We'll sort this out, I promise." Tréville had dandled this young woman on his knee, presented her with her first rocking horse and later her first pony. He'd taught her to ride and fence, just as he had her brother. The king's often neglected offspring had been surrogates for the children he would never have, for in the same way a nun became a bride of the church, Jean-Armand du Peyrer had taken the military to wife.

He held and rocked the princess for the space of a few heartbeats only; Porthos was pressing against his back with all the force of a young giant. Tréville swung his armful sideways to let him pass. "Aramis is his best friend, he's been worried sick from the moment we got your message. How is he? Can he ride? We must get him out of this accursed place as quickly as possible." He felt her stiffen in his arms and kicked himself mentally. "I'm sorry, that was the wrong thing to say, my dear. You've been a pillar of strength, let me shoulder the burden now."

Christine drew back, wiping away tears with the sleeve of her gown. "I love him, Jean-Armand, with all my heart, but this is ..." she sniffed and wiped her nose again, "this is beyond bearing. I never thought he could be so monstrous."

So she knew, or at least strongly suspected. Tréville mentally wiped his sweating brow.

"Savoy sent a bird as well, said it was the work of Spanish marauders, but if it is your wish, I will take you back with us, and I will make your brother understand. Let Savoy throw himself at the might of the French throne." He meant every word, though he knew she would not accept the offer. This _fille de France_ , and child of his heart, was as much a political animal as her mother, though lacking the armored heart. She knew her value on this border down to a _sou_ in political coinage. But more than that, he knew she loved the dour man she had espoused.

"No," the Medici daughter sighed, "Victor owns my heart, the wretched man." Nor could she bring herself to give this beloved man more pain than he already bore. She hugged the captain hard again, before slipping her hand down his arm to mesh her small, warm fingers with his large, cold ones. "Becca thinks your Musketeer should not be moved, it might exacerbate the head wound."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Tréville let her weave him through the barrier to the side of a mattress on the attic floor, set near the chimney and enclosed by odds and ends of obsolete furnishings. They had no choice; exposing Christine to Savoy's wrath should he discover she had harbored one of the Musketeers was to sign her death warrant. Aramis must be moved immediately, even if it killed him. Which, in the sparse light of a dark lantern, looked like it might.

"Becca." Tréville touched her forearm as he knelt beside her. On the other side of the mattress Porthos was attempting to chafe life back into the pale hand he gripped with the expediency of a lifeline.

Between them, Aramis might have been an artist's rendering of a portrait so still did he lie beneath the pile of blankets.

"This is Porthos, Becca. What do we need to do to prepare to move Aramis?"

Porthos contorted his large frame to crouch closer, commencing a whispered monologue close to his friend's ear.

"I know it's got to be done, but I fear he won't survive the move." Becca dashed away useless tears. She'd kept him company for three days, cared for the needs of his body, spooned water and broth down his throat with and without his cooperation. Her hands knew his form intimately. "He's no worse than the night Benoît dragged him up here, but the vitality has fled, there is no desire to live."

Twenty men dead. Marsac missing; Aramis standing with his hand on the latch of the door to Beyond.

The captain breathed in the cold attic air wishing with all his heart he could trade places. He touched the old woman's shoulder again, knowing there was no time to waste. "I know what Aramis would choose. We've little time to waste, _madame_ , I'm sorry. Porthos, grab the bottom blankets. Christine, can you get his feet? Becca, we need you to move back." Savoy could return at any moment, there was no time to waste. Between them, they hefted the limp body in the blanket litter.

Becca picked up the lantern and went before them, opening the door, guiding them down the stairs.

"I'll take him from here." Porthos twisted to take Aramis' head and shoulders, sliding an arm beneath the marksman's knees so he held his friend like a child pressed to his chest.

Christine wrapped and then tucked the blanket around the Musketeer so it wouldn't unravel and drag through the snow. Stepping back, a hand went to her throat. " _Que Dieu garde sa main sur toi_ , _mon cher ami_." May God keep his hand over you, my dear friend.

"And you also. Do not let fear conquer you, you were a princess before you were a duchess, remember that," Tréville reminded. "The might of France is at your call, Your Highness, do not be dilatory in sending for it if necessary."

"I hear and I obey." The fondness in the quick smile her response evoked steeled her spine. "Go quickly, then, before I change my mind and repudiate my husband!"

In less than a handful of minutes, their mission had been accomplished. A trio of Musketeers, two stepping carefully into already made tracks, disappeared into the woods, the third oblivious to the fact that he was about to be hauled will-you-nill-you back to life.

T **BC**


	10. Chapter 10

The dispute was accomplished in hushed voices, each vehemently arguing the rightness of their points until Tréville ended it with a barked command. At least he thought he'd ended it, turning away to climb aboard the second wagonload of dead men. Settling himself, he flicked the reins and without looking back, expertly maneuvered the horses and high-sided wagon out from between the trees.

Except he heard no sound of a wagon following. Cursing, out loud this time, he pulled back on the lines, stopped the horses and wrapped the reins around the brake. He could not afford to put his head in his hands, but he wanted to. He wanted to sit and bawl his eyes out. To grieve for the young men they had harvested from the frozen campsite like broken sheaves. To feed the rage growing in him with every name and all the accomplishments they would nevermore attempt. He wanted to scream and beat upon the gates of heaven, demand answers from a god who could let twenty innocent young men die because of the machinations of a spider spinning silken plots far beyond its Parisian lair.

He did not have time to do any of these things. He had twenty, cold, dead bodies to return to Paris and a proper burial. There would be no time to grieve in Paris either. Jean-Armand du Peyrer, usually known as Captain Tréville, knew without a doubt he would be busy misplacing blame, laying false trails and covering the cardinal's tracks. For what crime against humanity - besides the deaths of twenty good men - he could only guess. But he was certain he'd be finding out far sooner than he wished.

Right now he had an obstinate Musketeer to cajole. Porthos was feeling guilty from the top of his kerchiefed head right down to his booted toes. He'd appointed himself Aramis' protector almost from the moment the two had met, they'd been nearly inseparable, until another had shoehorned his way between the pair.

Marsac had been a little older, a little better even than Aramis, with guns, and open in his admiration of the younger Musketeer's skills. The one thing Porthos had never given the youthful marksman, respect for his abilities, Marsac had provided in spades, taking Aramis off to target shoot, usurping Porthos' place in the routine fleecing of the Red Guard with their blindfolded shooting exhibitions, teaching Aramis the tricks and shortcuts age and experience had gifted to Marsac. How to load quicker, how to swiftly adjust gun sites for greater accuracy, where the hand naturally reached for lead and powder. Little things practice and familiarity would have eventually taught Aramis, too. Each small enhancement, though, had sharpened Aramis' skills until the student had far outstripped the teacher. Even then, Marsac had had only admiration for his pupil. Aramis had accepted it as his due.

Porthos, never one for useless flummery, had shrugged off his melancholy and turned his back on the occasional flourishes Aramis had made back into his territory.

The only other time Porthos had disobeyed a direct order had been just under a fortnight ago, when Tréville, drawing a line in the sand between the surly Musketeers, had ordered Porthos to accompany the troop on the training mission and Porthos had flatly refused to go. He'd spent the intervening week mucking out the stables. Tréville had watched him appear in the courtyard at every arrival, seen him sag with disappointment and return to the stables where he'd first begun his career among the Musketeers.

The captain climbed carefully down from the wagon. His chest, at least, was finally cooperating, though he felt like a wrung out rag thrown over the laundry line. "Porthos, we don't have time for this."

Moonlight filtered sparsely through the trees, silvering a patch of bark, a twist of shrub, the blanket-covered bodies behind Porthos who sat on the seat of the wagon, Aramis' blanket-wrapped form wedged in so his head and shoulders lay across Porthos' thighs with the bundled feet wedged against the side of the seat.

"You know I'd follow you into hell ... sir." Porthos held the reins loosely in one hand, the other was wrapped protectively around his brother's shoulder, anchoring Aramis in place. "But I'm not just gonna let 'em die." Aramis' god was too complicated for Porthos, but he knew one thing - if that god had meant for the marksman to be dead, he would be. And that meant God had put Porthos in charge of bringing the battered and broken Musketeer back to life. He was of one mind with God on this.

Tréville sighed. "Fine, we'll find an inn over the border and I'll get another driver. You can stay with him until ... until he's well enough to travel."

An obscure, out-of-the-way inn where no one would accidentally stumble over a couple of Musketeers. Though perhaps Savoy didn't realize he'd missed two. Which turned his mind to Marsac and where the missing Musketeer could be. Was he injured as well? Had he tried to reach Paris and fallen along the way? He'd found the tracks leading away into the woods, as well as the ones leading back out to the road. It was a simple matter of deduction; Aramis had been found, Marsac had gone into woods.

"Can we go now?"

Porthos, having won the battle of wills, gave a curt nod, lifting the reins.

He could smell death; hear it creaking toward him. Had he not been wrapped like a mummy, hands pressed to his sides, feet immobilized and without vision, he might have run toward it. He could not even thrash though, so snug were the bindings that swathed him head to toe.

A hand settled on his chest; not the old woman from the attic, too weighty. A familiar hand, he knew, though he could not think _how_ he knew. It just was.

A familiar comforting weight that turned his thoughts to warmth and safety accompanied by a huge laugh. Smiling eyes above a grin that belonged on a jungle cat so stealthy was its nature. It crept up on a man and took him by surprise. If only he could remember who that grin belonged to...

He thought his head rested on flesh and wondered if he lay, again, among his dead brothers, the stink reminded him of cadaver classes at the Sorbonne. He tried to shift inside his cocoon and felt the hand press harder.

His head no longer splintered with each jolt - of wagon wheels - he realized, at the same time recognizing he was able to follow a line of reasoning. And the reason he could not see was because it was dark and there was a loosely flapping blanket over his face.

"Just a bit more and I'll get ya fixed up with a real bed and your _maman's_ medicines. You'll be right as rain in not time, I promise."

The grating voice rumbled on and Aramis grasped that this was what had drawn him irresistibly to consciousness. It was familiar, too. Those big hands and this comforting voice had grasped the gaping maw of death and wrestled it closed. He would have to live with this on his conscience for the rest of his life.

The wagon drew to a halt before Aramis could get his mind around the concept. His choice had been taken away, Porthos would drag him back to life with or without his consent. Which meant he would have to sort out and tend to the voices in his head.

Damn. He just wanted to be a voice in someone else's head.

"I've found a driver." The cardinal would have to pony up for the costs involved. After all, what was a little blackmail compared to the treacle-like treason the man was in up to his neck. Tréville had put the last few pieces together in the hour it had taken them to cross the border and find this secluded inn. "Here let me take him while you -" He reached up expectantly, ignoring the ache in his arm.

"I got 'em," Porthos grunted, hefting Aramis in his arms. "You ought to at least get an hour or two of sleep 'fore you head off again."

"The innkeeper doesn't want the bodies smelling up his place. Can't blame him." Tréville stumbled as he stepped back to make room. He knew Richelieu had been planning to secure Savoy for France, why he'd naively supposed that meant further negotiations he could not quite fathom now. With French backing, the duchess could easily hold Savoy for her son, should her husband suddenly and conveniently predecease her. It was no stretch to imagine the cardinal throwing the Musketeer regiment to the wolves in an attempt to placate Savoy's wrath. Which likely meant Savoy believed Tréville had planned the assassination attempt.

He was a little surprised the duke had not been home to offer the same greeting Little Red Riding Hood had received.

"You okay?" Porthos lurched down from the wagon, trying not to jostle Aramis more than necessary. He peered at the captain, who wiped a hand over his drawn face and once more squared his shoulders.

"Doesn't matter." Tréville was beginning to suspect he was far from okay, but there was job yet to be done and he would see it to its conclusion. "Get him inside. I'll bring the packs."

"Surely he'll allow you time to eat before you start off again?" Porthos was feeling slightly guilty, now that he'd gotten his way. Tréville had been insistent they take Aramis and head immediately back to France, whatever the consequences. A risk Porthos had been unwilling to take. He'd give up his commission before he'd risk Aramis' life further.

The captain made no reply, merely shouldered the pack Porthos had brought from the infirmary, gathered up the split rucksack scavenged from the ruined tents and followed his Musketeers into the inn.

 _TBC_


	11. Chapter 11

He was in a real bed, dressed in a proper nightshirt and way too warm when he woke again. Aramis shoved at the stack of blankets only to discover Porthos sprawled beside him, jaw slack, a heavy arm weighing down the bedclothes. Across the room, a blazing fire chirped in merry counterpart to the snoring beside him.

Aramis rolled to his back, shoving the sheet and blankets toward his companion. He found his legs tended to the consistency of jelly when he tried to rise, but the call of nature was insistent, so he slid to his knees and crawled - albeit slowly - toward the screened chamber pot.

He'd finished his business and headed across the continent of empty space, head hanging between his wobbling arms when Porthos patted the hill, murmuring something unintelligible between snores and rolled over. Then sat straight up on the bed.

" _Merde_!" Porthos' bleary-eyed gaze swung around the room until it lit on Aramis, backlit by the fire. He was off the bed like a shot.

Aramis, however, warded off the well-intentioned help, smacking away the hands that reached for him. "Leave me alone," he snapped. "Because of you I'm not dead and I'm not over being mad about it." He did not care that it came out more as whimper than a vocal whip crack. Somewhere in his drugged slumber he had become resigned to the fact apparently. He had a vague memory of being freed from the binding blanket, manhandled into the nightshirt and thrust into bed before being dosed with something that had sent him into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Porthos clamped his jaw shut and batted aside the resistance. "Don' care what ya think, s'long as yer alive to think it." He hauled Aramis to his feet, all but carrying him back to bed when the marksman dragged his feet.

"I hate you right now, why can't you hear that?"

Porthos wore his big heart on his big sleeve. He had no defense against an attack from a friend, the hurt lodged deep, festering instantly, and yet - he never took offense. His hands were gentle as he eased Aramis back down on the bed then turned away without another word.

Aramis slumped back against the piled up pillows and watched as Porthos measured and poured and stirred as if born to the healing arts. A bit of irony that, the pupil aiding the teacher. A single side-long glance into the guileless, deep-brown eyes of his self-appointed guardian angel and Aramis knew he was defeated. He took the potion grudgingly, though his hands trembled around the cup.

Porthos dropped to one knee, closing his warm fingers around the hot hands clasping the wooden cup.

It tasted like honey and mint and the air after a fresh rain. "What did you give me?"

"Court remedy fer fever, cures it every time," Porthos said gruffly, taking the cup when it was empty. "'m sorry," he added softly, sitting back on his heels.

"For what?" Aramis battled down a maniacal laugh. "Your prescience in having the brains to stay behind?"

Porthos did not flinch, nor did the compassion written plainly on his face disappear. "'m sorry I let 'm vanity get the better o'me. I was jealous, I let that get in the way of our friendship. 'm sorry I didn' have yer back like I should'a."

"Marsac had my back." Aramis saw the shaft burrow deep. "It's the only reason I'm alive. He dragged me into the forest when I was injured."

Porthos said nothing, but truth shone from his steady gaze.

Aramis looked away, knowing full well Porthos would never have left him. "Did he make it back to the garrison? How long has it been?"

"Close as we know, we left the garrison no more than a couple'a days after the massacre. We were on the road for two days, been here three and a half or so. No idea if Marsac made it back to the garrison. What happened?"

"Twenty men died." Aramis closed his eyes. And saw again the ruin of their camp, the bloodstains on the snow. The misty light of the ghosts in the attic.

"Counted 'em m'self," Porthos agreed without rancor. He'd helped load his dead friends into the wagons. "What happened, Aramis?"

"It was a training mission," Aramis supplied dully. "On a friendly border." He swiped at his leaking eyes. "It never occurred to us to ..." His eyes fluttered open, darting to the shadows of the fire lit room. He blinked and closed them again, looking internally. "It never occurred to us ... to post guards."

The ghosts ... were gone, the whispering sound of their voices so faint he could no longer distinguish individuals. The shock of it doused him like icy water. He sat up so fast his head swam, reaching for Porthos' steadiness. "I've lost them."

"Marsac?" Porthos came fluidly to his knees again, grasping Aramis' outstretched arms at the elbows.

"No, the others. They're gone!"

"Uh... uhhhhh..." Porthos could not find gentler words. "They're dead, Aramis, you just told me that - twenty men dead."

"What have I done? Oh God what have I done?"

Porthos folded the keening wail into his arms, rocking his best friend like a motherless child. "Shhhhhhhh," he whispered soothingly, over and over. "Shhhhhhhhhhh..."

Aramis tolerated it for the length of time it took his conscious mind to catch up with the unconscious knowing. "I have to go back." He pushed back with what strength he could muster, though it was little more than a kitten's bat at a string.

"Where?"

"Savoy!"

"We can't." Porthos loosened his hold, but kept his steadying grip on Aramis' arms. "The captain insisted we get outta Savoy. He wanted us to go on to Paris immediately, but the old woman said you wouldn't make it'ta Paris. Tréville wasn' happy, but he finally agreed to let me stay here with you until you're up to travl'in again."

Or dead. Porthos had heard the expectation in Tréville's capitulation. Aramis was alive, but not because he wanted to be. Porthos had waged an intense battle over the last several days, and not just medically. Between cudgeling his brain for all he'd learned from Aramis of the healing arts and creating ever more potent potions, he been busy throwing proverbial planks across the abyss he could sense Aramis stretching toward. The marksman had fought over every inch of ground, but in the end, Porthos had prevailed. He dragged Aramis back from the chasm of survivor's guilt by sheer force of will.

Aramis put all his will into increasing the pressure of his hands wrapped around the ropy arms holding him up. "I have to go back. You have to take me back."

 _TBC_


	12. Chapter 12

His knees buckled as he slid from the saddle, but Porthos was there to grab him around the waist and haul him up. His head hurt again, having been so long in the shadowy dusk of the attic and then the inn room, the brilliant light of day stabbed like a parrying dagger pricking at his eyeballs. But Aramis persevered.

"Where?" Porthos inquired, incalculably thankful to have won this most important battle. He would make amends in whatever way Aramis demanded, for having abandoned the marksman in the first place and then having towed him back to life against his will.

Aramis, leaning heavily on his companion, pointed, then shuffled toward the large patch of scorched earth marking the fire ring in the middle of the camp. The snow had melted, the trampled grass down the alley between tents had straightened, neither branch nor twig lay in the clearing. Nothing to mark the spot where twenty men had died.

Except the ghosts. The substantially more transparent shades of the men who had crowded 'round him in a cold attic. They were thinning, their outlines further blurred. Edouard lay in the grass, arms spread-eagled, as he had in the moment of death. Beside him, Chavain sat with Allard in his lap, the child's head cradled to youth's shoulder. In life, Allard had been fearless, in death his chronological age was far more apparent. Cyrille stood with his face downcast, staring at the ground. Likely at the spot where he had died as well. Fregeau and Houle paced the length of the non-existent tent alley, passing through companions variously sitting or standing in their way.

All of them fading.

The Musketeer cursed his mother yet again. She called this a gift; he called it a blight. But if he could not help them, his friends would disappear completely. He could not count the times his mother had tartly informed he and his eleven siblings that they carried every tool they needed, no matter what situation arose. They had only to open their awareness and answers would present themselves. He knew he had the resources to render aid; to do so, however, would expose his soul in unimaginable ways. Well, perhaps not so unimaginable, since he had a mother who openly practiced the preternatural.

"Aramis?" Porthos nudged quietly. "We should do whatever it is ya come for and get outta this place." A chill beyond the frigid early morning air was working its way into his bones. This was not the first time he'd encountered the unrest that marked places where violent death had occurred, the more so now because he'd known these men with the intimacy of brothers-in-arms.

Aramis purposefully pulled in his bones and sucked in his breath so he slid from Porthos' loose hold to the ground, exactly where he'd stood every morning of the mission, detailing the day's activities. Marsac had been happy to let him take charge of the day to day running of the operation, though nominally the elder Musketeer had been in command of the unit. It required effort to sit without bolstering, but then Porthos slowly dropped to his heels behind the marksman, propping him up.

"They're here aren't they?" The awe in the normally big voice, lowered to a church whisper, held just a touch of trepidation. "We came back because ... they're here. You said ... you left them behind."

Aramis ignored him. "I'm sorry," he said, collecting twenty pairs of ghostly eyes, his own lingering with deep sorrow on the fading figure of their youthful drummer boy. "I'm so very sorry for what happened. I'm sorry that I let you down, that I did not die with you. But I can't take you with me and you can't stay here, you need to move on before you're trapped here."

Ghostly feet shuffled. They didn't understand. Their faces said it all - where? Where are we to go?

Aramis heard it in an echo of their voices, too, subdued and frightened, the clamorous sound of the attic having grown faint as well.

As if a seed had been planted and willed to maturity in and for this exact moment, a truth unfolded, petal by petal, in his mind. He felt it first; a soaking warmth that beckoned with the authority of an affectionate hand drawing him toward a heart and a place like no other. A place where consolation poured over the soul like a waterfall of peace. It spread from his core, a succor that swept like a cleansing tide through his extremities as though washing away not just the physical hurts, but the enervating sorrow and sadness as well. It wrapped around his soul like a warm blanket, an assurance of the rightness of taking this step, of allowing himself to the be the conduit.

A longing such as he'd never felt in his life touched Aramis, as a heretofore unknown vigor possessed him. The heaviness of his body dropped away and for a moment, he experienced the same lightness as his lost friends.

"Can you see it?" he breathed so softly that behind him Porthos bent to catch the whisper of sound.

In that moment, Porthos clasped little more than a glow, as Aramis' spirit responded to the pull of the light, momentarily dispensing with the shell of his physical body.

Transparent heads swiveled. Alllard pushed himself forward on Chavain's lap. Edouard raised his head from the grass. Valois nudged Soisson as Fregeau and Houle ceased their pacing. Every face turned to Aramis expectantly.

"Do you see the path?" Aramis rose to his knees, his soul settling back into its corporeal body as though the light patted it gently back into shape, and found himself still wrapped inside Porthos' encompassing arms, though he no longer needed the support. "That's where you're going, you must take that path."

No one moved.

"Allard, do you see it?"

The boy nodded, then shook his head.

"Chavain," Aramis directed, "take his hand. Allard, you see the path, I know you do," he coaxed, when the child shook his head again, stretching silvery arms plaintively toward Aramis rather than allowing Chavain to take his hand. "Do you remember your granny, Allard? She's waiting anxiously for you."

A frown creased the small, bloody brow.

"You are a Musketeer and must follow orders, Allard. Take Chavain's hand and show him the path, take him to meet your granny."

Because he knew his duty, Allard grasped Chavain's hand as ordered, taking a tentative step toward the beautiful, beckoning light.

Aramis felt his heart swell as he watched the child swallow down fear and take that first step. Two grudging steps more and he saw the youngster catch a glimpse of eternity, wonder and amazement replacing terror and dread in the wide eyes staring into an amazing future.

He saw Cyrille shout jubliantly, though Aramis no longer heard their voices, and realized that with each breathe he breathed in, he understood better why his mother considered this a gift rather than a curse. And with each breathe he breathed out, the weight of the burden became lighter ... and lighter ... until it was no more than a dandelion puff. These were not ghosts, they were his friends. To be able to offer them aid was a gift beyond measure.

Porthos squeezed his eyes shut. Almost, if he strained mightily, he could see the edges of the veil lifting, the shadowy figures Aramis clearly saw so plainly. Almost he could see Allard take Chavain by the hand.

"Gris, follow them." The path was brightening as the men began to turn toward it. "Busserie, Huot, no lagging behind. You must all follow Allard home. I swear to you..." His throat closed. "There will be friends waiting for you. Debois, your _maman_ is waiting right next to Allard's **_grand-mère_** . Lage, the papa you have yet to meet will be on hand to greet you. Go, go now, _mes amis_." Tears clogged his voice. "I would come with you if I could, but I will see you again. Some day. I _will_ see you again."

The light wrapped around Aramis as he lifted a hand in salute, watching as tentative smiles began to transform the frightened faces. Wounds faded as young bodies sloughed off the disfiguring scars, restored to wholeness even before the light shrouded their forms and took them from his sight. Chavain, having set Allard upon the path and chivvied the others after him, turned back to Aramis, both feet firmly planted on the path, his body straining toward the light.

" _Oui_ ," Aramis read the last message shaped on smiling lips, " _jusqu'à ce qu'on se revoie_."

Until we meet again.

 _~ End~_

 _Dear Readers,_

 _If you will indulge for just a few more minutes, I want to share a couple of things. And invite you to make this an interactive experience._

 _I tried and discarded several epilogues that did not work for me, so this is going to be a write your own epilogue. Here are a number of scenarios I considered:_

Aramis & Porthos in the rain after Tréville leaves Aramis standing in the Musketeer cemetery.

Aramis being cosseted by the Inseparables, dried off and warmed up, etc., after Tréville tells him they're waiting for him in the dining room.

Victor appears unexpectedly in the garrison office as Tréville is drying himself out from having been standing in the rain with Aramis.

 _I chose not to return the story to where it began because I wanted the ending to stand as is. However, if you're interested in playing in an interactive venue and writing an epilogue, I would be happy to collect and post them with appropriate acknowledgements, as the last chapter of the story. You can send it to me at bootsnhats2014 at yahoo dot com. I will consider the matter closed if no one has responded by the 11/30/17._

 _On a last note, there is one other TM story sitting on my hard drive that might get finished. I just don't know if will actually come to fruition, so I wanted to note that_ Until We Meet Again _is probably going to be my last story in fandom. I'm only sharing this because I've experienced the loss of fandom friends without explanation and wondered and worried if something bad happened to them, so I just want to put it out there that I'm off to start a different journey. One where I will take all of you with me in my heart because your are the foundation of this new journey. From grade school I've dreamed of writing and publishing professionally and writing fan fiction has given me a solid base to make that leap._

 _I will be celebrating a significant birthday at the end of this month and in not-that-many years, retirement might be an option. It's my intention that by the time I retire, I'll already have begun a second career as a professional, publishing author. So my birthday gift to myself this new natal year is 12 months to focus on writing a book. I'm terrified! Fan fiction for me is like comfort food for the soul; even thinking about leaving has been a wrenching proposition, but I've discovered I can't make the leap and continue to write fan fiction. I've tried and it's not working._

 _So I just want to say goodbye and thank you with all my heart to every individual whose wandered through the pages of one of my stories, to every one of you whose made my life immeasurably brighter by leaving a comment or review or sending a note. I've stored away the joy I've collected from all my fandom readers so that when I'm really discouraged and need a lift I can wander back through the pages of feedback you've shared and find the will to go on!_

 _Thank you so much for being partners with me in my fandom journey!_

 _Heart hugs and blessings_

 _char_

 _a/k/a M_LadyinWaiting/bootsnhats_


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